Mitt Romney wins last debate decisively, destroys Santorum, Gingrich and Paul
By Brian Schoeneman | Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 | PoliticsOkay, I admit it – that was a troll headline. Nobody won last night’s debate. Well, that’s not true either. Everyone who watched something else won. And while there were no clear winners, Romney does get extra bonus points for mentioning Jeanine McDonnell’s services overseas in the debate.
If last night’s Republican debate made anything clearer for us voters, it was that we’ve had enough debates for one election season. I know I’m certainly tired of watching them, and from the way the candidates held themselves up last night, they’ve tired of performing in them. I was actually hoping that when John King asked his inane question of what one word best describes each of them, one of them would have been honest and said “tired.”
Because that’s how this whole process feels now. It’s tired.
Last night’s debate shed little light on issues that hadn’t been shed before. Ron Paul continues to double down on his hopelessly insular belief that the United States shouldn’t be involved in anything overseas, but if we do, we should at least actually declare war – as if declaring a war somehow makes everything else okay.
Santorum and Romney bickered like little children, going back and forth multiple times and talking over each other in a display that would have earned them a time out in most first grade classrooms.
Santorum made valid points about earmarks which will fall on deaf ears because too many voters have bought into the political pablum that all earmarks are pork barrel spending and evil. Unfortunately, Santorum’s points are all way too inside-the-beltway to resonate with folks. I can totally accept and understand his point about endorsing Arlen Specter, but it took him three minutes to explain why he did it. That’s not going to fly, Rick.
Romney scored probably his best point of the night when he reminded Santorum that Santorum endorsed Romney in 2008, Romneycare and all. It was also interesting to see Romney refer to Massachusett’s health care plan as “Romneycare” in the debate a few times.
Gingrich sat off to the side, mostly ignored, attacking Obama because he’s so far from being a front runner now that there’s no reason for him to waste energy attacking either Romney or Santorum.
Two things I noted – I was pleased to have the audience boo the idiotic contraception question. The whole idea that Republicans don’t support contraception is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. Saying Republicans are for banning contraception is like saying Kim Kardashian deserves to be famous. It doesn’t even pass the laugh test.
It’s also both interesting and amusing to watch Ron Paul attack Santorum and ignore Romney. I can see why so many folks believe now that Romney has struck some kind of deal with Ron Paul (not VP – that would be insane.) Paul is the strongest counterpoint to Santorum, since he served in Congress the same time, and was consistent in his attacks on spending and the war. Whatever attack ads Ron Paul has run have been almost exclusively leveled at everyone but Romney, which makes me feel better about donating $10 to his campaign to get a copy of his cookbook – my cat wanted it for Christmas. At least I know that money didn’t go to attacking Romney.
In the end, we didn’t learn much more about these candidates that we didn’t already know, and there weren’t any major gaffes that will end up on Late Night TV or give Krystal Ball something to talk about on MSNBC as she tries to convince everyone she’s on there because she’s some kind of a “Democratic strategist.” Right.
As we limp slowly towards Arizona and Michigan, all I can say at this point is that I wish it was August.
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About the author
A veteran political professional, a long-time Republican party activist and new attorney, Brian W. Schoeneman has been offering his opinions at Bearing Drift since 2010. He serves on the Board of Virginia Line Media, LLC, which operates Bearing Drift and spends his days representing the U.S. Merchant Marine in Washington, D.C. He hails from Fairfax County, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and son.
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33 Responses to "Mitt Romney wins last debate decisively, destroys Santorum, Gingrich and Paul"
I was wondering if you had watched the same debate I did. Your first sentence cleared that up. One thing this debate did was make clear that Gingrich is done. “Cheerful”…really?
Romney needed a knockout and didn’t get it. Michigan and Arizona are going to be very interesting to watch.
I think we are well on our way to a brokered convention and I am still convinced at this point none of the candidates will be able to overcome Obama in November.
“Romney does get extra bonus points for mentioning Jeanine McDonnell’s services overseas in the debate” – this is the kind of BS kowtowing that resonates with politicos like yourself who don’t even approach politics for what it is supposed to be – finding representatives who are trustworthy and represent their constituents honorably. That paradigm doesn’t exist for you or many of the establishment GOP. You’re stuck in a highschool mindset, thinking that this is a game, or a past time or a social experiment and the matters of right or wrong no longer matters – its who looks good saying what they say, regardless of whether they mean what they say that matters to you. Its going through the motions… putting on a good face. You’re a big part of whats wrong with the establishment and WHY there needs to be a change. AS for your rundown of Paul’s major stance last night…. funny how you THINK you’ve got a point…. if declaring a war was so insignificant and meaningless, do you think that MAYBE our representatives would have done just that? of course not, they haven’t declared a war since WW2 and we’ve been in dozen military conflicts, ALL LOST. Paul has a point – representatives approve military action when its not labeled war because there’s no personal or political risk in that – the conflict doesn’t even really exist – to them its a police action supported by international factions. How about this: how about we take our sovereignty back – make our own decisions for our own benefit – take the advice of our founding fathers and avoid entangling alliances – and take military conflict seriously. THAT was Paul’s point: meaning, if you want a war – declare it – TAKE IT SERIOUSLY – COMMIT to it and get it done and WIN! Everything we’ve been doing since WW2 has been half assed, just like your political conviction and perspective.
Lighten up, Francis.
Brian, you are the big toe.
+1 Thomas.. Paul held the banner last night on behalf of the founders unlike the others. Maybe someday interpreting the constitution will be kool again to republicans.
+1 Thomas, and bang on. As usual, I don’t agree with Brian S. I think Santorum and Romney came across very bad. (correct English would not use “badly.”)
The person who “won” this debate was Ron Paul. And I say this as Gingrich supporter. Newt came in 2nd. Santorum was utterly destroyed. Romney remains as the Grim Reaper. Have to give Romney 3rd place in this show.
Now, I do agree with Brian S. on one thing. RP has never attacked Romney, and is playing a game we may not have quite deciphered. But it’s pretty clear he wants Romney to win the GOP nomination. Why? Because he knows Obama will tear him to shreds in the General. Thus clearing the path for his son Rand Paul in 2016.
Plus keep rolling up delegates at the Convention. It’s a pretty good strategy if you take the long view. Even if Romney wins the nomination, it’s a pretty neat trick. You get his list of donors and supporters, you get to have a seat at the platform committee, and it really costs you nothing. You kind of have to admire this.
Craig, I said both Romney and Santorum came across very bad. Unless getting a time out for acting like a first grader is your definition of coming across well.
No, Brian, what you wrote was this about that:
“Santorum and Romney bickered like little children, going back and forth multiple times and talking over each other in a display that would have earned them a time out in most first grade classrooms.”
But why quibble over this? They both came across bad and acting like little children in a first grade classroom. I think we agree on this one.
The next thing is where I think Paul came off as the winner.
“Ron Paul continues to double down on his hopelessly insular belief that the United States shouldn’t be involved in anything overseas, but if we do, we should at least actually declare war – as if declaring a war somehow makes everything else okay.
Here is where we have a big, big, big disconnect, Brian. In fact, the very way you wrote this is creepy. I happen to agree that overseas WARS should be declared by Congress, as the Constitution directs. You seem to have a problem with that. Why? I don’t know. You can expound on why the USA should be the policeman of the world, and what it costs, all you please. I can’t wait to read it.
BTW, Brian S. Your “troll headline” is exactly why a lot of people don’t trust you. Romney did not “destroy” anybody but himself. Basic journalism 101. Headline leads to story. First sentence of story does not read “OK, I made that up.” This is one reason I do not respect anything you write.
Declaring war doesn’t make what America does overseas okay. Forcing the Congress and the President to play by the rules would mean that it would be much harder to just go into a war without a plan to get out. It would mean that a clear mission would be necessary and it would also give the people just a little bit of say through their representatives in Congress as to whether or not they agree to sending their sons and daughters off to die in a foreign land. It would give us a chance to avoid what has bankrupted us.
My problem with what Ron Paul said last night was simple – he wants to ignore the fact that we live in a global economy and a world where things that occur overseas have a direct impact here at home. We are the only superpower capable of projecting power globally so there are going to be times when we have to do that. Ron Paul disagrees. I think he’s wrong. There are millions of people around the world who would also agree that he’s wrong, because they’re alive today thanks to our intervention. We have interests that are global and we have to defend those interests. We’ve moved beyond the idea that we only need to use force to defend invasions of America. That’s a 19th century argument.
As for the declaring war issue, it’s semantics. Every single one of the conflicts of the last 70 years that weren’t declared wars still had Congressional approval. Whether it’s called a declaration of war or an authorization for the use of force, it still requires Congressional action and that was received in all of those cases. The Constitution says Congress has the power to declare war, but it doesn’t say that’s all they can do and nothing else. That’s why I get so very, very tired of people who are unwilling to recognize that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly say everything that government can actually do. But regardless of all of that, whether it’s a declared war or an authorized conflict, the difference is just in what we call it.
I think Ron Paul understands that we as a superpower can project power without bombing people or going broke trying to rebuild other countries. What have we earned for all of this war in the past decade? Has projecting our power lowered the price of gas? I don’t quite understand how killing people and losing our own soldiers in the process has saved millions of lives. I think those killed would disagree with your assessment.
Of course Ron Paul knows we have global interests. Being against continued war is not isolationist nor is it an antiquated argument of the 19th century. Dr. Paul knows our interests are safer if we talk to countries and trade with them. Having a booming economy projects more power than an invasion. We are $15 trillion dollars in debt. Adding more war debt and borrowing from China puts our global interests more at risk and undermines our role and image as the only super power in the world.
Craig, my headline was specifically designed to tweak you, since your response to it was about as predictable as a sunrise.
Thanks for never failing to meet my expectations.
Mark, most of the regimes we’ve gone to war with, at least in the last few years in Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia, were killing their citizens indiscriminately. By removing those regimes we’ve helped end those kinds of attacks.
That’s the point of humanitarian interventions as we did in Yugoslavia. Everyone in the country is aware of the many reasons we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan and I’m not interested in another debate about them.
Yes, it cost people’s lives to intervene. But the potential loss of life was likely much higher had we done nothing. That’s why we intervened.
Ron Paul consistently underestimates our strategic opponents and that’s one of the reason why most Americans don’t trust him on foreign policy questions.
Brian,
Good analysis of the debate, at least the portion of it that I was able to stomach before I switched to the History Channel. However, Ron Paul did more than just double down on his policy that we need not project power anywhere anyhow. He threw out another Ron Paul Whopper while Romney and Santorium were bickering over earmarks: he claimed that earmarks passed by Congress for domestic spending had been diverted to pay for overseas wars. Anyone who has a grain of knowledge about supplemental appropriations and anti-deficiency statutes knows that claim is ridiculous on its very face. Once again, Ron Paul demonstrated that he is either a pathological liar or an ignorant fool.
You did not address the fact that we can’t afford any more war. I think we can agree that we want to remain a super power. Ron Paul doesn’t underestimate the dangers posed by spreading our military too thin. Are the countries we invade in the middle east a direct threat to America or are they simply our “strategic opponents?” You did not provide an answer as to what America has gained from this strategy. The people of Egypt overthrew their dictator without our intervention. In fact we propped up Mubarak with billions of dollars. Ron Paul wants to stop giving our strategic opponents money through foreign aid. You simply can’t ignore the $15 trillion dollars in debt. Whether or not you agree with our interventions in the middle east the fact is we can’t afford it.
Mark, we’ve removed one regime that was protecting terrorists who had attacked the United States (Afghanistan), we removed another regime that had caused multiple wars in it’s region and had threatened the United States repeatedly (Iraq). Those were both direct threats to the United States and our interests.
We can never afford war. We don’t budget for wars. We don’t plan for them. Whenever they happen, it’s emergency spending and we don’t off-set them against the rest of the budget. We’ve never done that.
The people of Egypt were able to overthrow their dictator without our direct, substantial intervention, but we played a role. And those people had significantly more freedoms than their counterparts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Do you see North Koreans overthrowing their regime anytime soon? What happened the last time the Chinese tried it? Not everyone can do this on their own.
The bigger question is never can we afford it, it’s always can we afford not to do it. You can’t put a price tag on the damage Iran can do with a nuclear weapon, can you?
Mark,
The problem with our overseas spending is not that we can’t afford it as much as the fact that Ron Paul greatly exaggerates how much there is of it. We spend more money every three weeks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as we did in an entire year in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Ron Paul is fond of claiming that we have “over 700″ overseas bases. We have 88. Last night he claimed that Iran is “ringed by 45 US bases” if you look at a map. Really?
The reason people laugh at Ron Paul is because no one believes his outrageous assertions except for those who are willing to accept his bullshit without fact-checking it.
Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon. They couldn’t do anything with a nuclear weapon because they would be immediately blown away by Israel and the United States. For this reason they are not even pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Iraq has never been a threat to the United States. We supported Iraq with money and weapons during the Iran/Iraq war. We play a role in bringing about these dictators and then rack up a huge debt to remove them.
The problem with not caring about the $15 trillion in debt and borrowing from China is that it can’t last forever. If you want America to continue to be a humanitarian or a police man for the whole world we have to get our economy in order. We won’t be in a position of super power for much longer if we ignore the debt that the wars accumulate.
Iran is not a threat to the United States or Israel. Arguing to waste money we don’t have getting rid of nuclear weapons they don’t have isn’t a strategy to keep America a super power in the long run.
Russia and China do have nuclear weapons and they have stated that if Iran is attacked they will defend their ally. I worry about the cost in human life that a potential world war will bring about. It disappoints me that Americans are told to cower in fear over a country that is not a threat to us, yet the $15 trillion in debt which is a real threat to America can be easily ignored as inconsequential.
Ron Paul’s position on foreign affairs sounds the same as Obama’s “hope and change” theme of the last election. If Paul would disengage the US from the rest of the world, then the vacuum would be displaced by opportunists on a global level moving on each other for natural resources, wealth, political power, food, water and energy resulting Malthusian apocalypse which would directly threaten our national security. Paul has consistently indicated by his disengagement rhetoric during the debates that he is not emotionally, intellectually or morally equipped to handle the direct application of our National resources to confront the problems he would create.
Meh. Unless we watched different debates last night, it was mostly a draw all around.
Earth to smitty: read the article. The headline was a teaser.
Brian. You flatter me. You write bogus headlines just to please me? You should be writing teaser headlines that have some uumph behind them. Kiss-kiss.
And for all the Romulans and Ronbots out there….just what is going on with this love fest between them? Enquiring minds want to know. Heck, even the MSM has finally picked up on this. Where is BD?
Man, I hit “send” too soon again. What was I thinking. BD endorsed Mitt, and the only two on the ballot in Virginia on March 6th are…guess who?
Craig, again, I pointed that out in the article.
Do you only read odd numbered paragraphs or something? I don’t get it.
@Brian S. – seriously? you mentioned Afghanistan… and THEN Iraq… and THEN EGypt?!?!?! lmao – each of those regimes started out as OUR allies – OUR puppets – the only time we raised against them was when they got too big for their britches and started making up their own decisions… so by your examples… tyrannical regimes are okay and isn’t a big deal if they are in place as long as they are of our making? so like yugoslavia… since those despots didn’t work FOR us – we made a move against them…. hmmmmmm
i have yet to read an article of yours thats made a lick of sense and was based on anything other than your idiotic misgivings of the way the world works.
if you represent merchant marines, then you ought to know that WE, the strongest force in the universe, can’t even protect a merchant ship from malakan or somali pirates….. and you think we ought to be policing everybody else for them?
idiots like you and the other establishment douc##s keep using Iran as a talking point for your fear mongering…. are you ready for them to have a nuclear weapon….. what about pakistan – they have an arsenal already and are falling apart with a well defined anti US movement within its government – to be logical and realistic, THEY are the bigger and more immediate threat – any FOOL would recognize that – i’m not surprised it slipped past you. THAT being the case – why is it Iran is the target of the day? obviously there are other reasons….. probably going back to W. Clark’s assertion that it was on the plate along with other middle eastern targets to be brought under our fold before China or Russia were able to block us… well that time has past – time to put the war drums down and start acting like adults and getting our fiscal house in order.
Rino Brian orders the cookbook !!!!!!!!!!
I wanted one of the wildly popular, burgundy limited-edition Ron Paul Signature pen. Guess I will have to settle for the liberty blue one.
At this point in time, it seems that the Ron Paul yard sign is much better then the Romney yard sign.
Thomas, the world changes as do our interests. When we were locked in the Cold War and fighting the Soviets, it made sense to prop up regimes that were less than savory because we could be assured of their support. Those are the kinds of decisions you make when you are trying to defend the world from a regime that wanted to enslave the entire world. The lesser of two evils.
Once that war ended, the strategic analysis changed. And when those same dictators we had supported turned on us, it was our responsibility to remove them. After all, we’d let them get away with what they were doing for those years. Isn’t that the responsible thing to do?
As for the merchant marine, we’ve done a pretty good job of protecting our fleet, with the Maersk Alabama situation being a notable exception. But regardless of how strong we are, it’s always difficult to defend against someone who has nothing to lose.
As for Iran, I never brought them up. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is a worry and that’s why we’ve been doing our best to work with them, support their pro-American government, while recognizing that many, many of them don’t like us. We’re doing exactly what Ron Paul says we should be doing in Iran – we talk to them, trade with them, provide them support and cooperate. If you don’t think that’s working, maybe Ron Paul is wrong.
If nothing I’ve ever written makes sense to you, feel free to stop reading it. Or find something on your reading level.
You mentioned Iran in your response to my comment. We are putting sanctions on Iran which is an act of war and definitely not what Ron Paul says we should be doing. The $15 trillion dollar debt is more of a danger to America than Iran which even our own intelligence officials say have no bomb and are not pursuing one.
I asked a question about Iran. I didn’t say they were a threat or that they were going after nuclear weapons or had them. As for our intelligence officials, are these the same folks who said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction? Do they now get credibility because they’re saying what you want to hear?
Sanctions are not an act of war. If they were, why use them at all? Why not just attack? Sanctions are a diplomatic tool designed to coerce without the use of force. There’s a big difference.
There is no way to quantify in dollar figures how big a threat Iran is or isn’t. Yes, we need to solve the debt crisis, but not at the expense of our national security.
My point was that Iran is not a threat to our national security and neither is cutting military spending that has little to do with protecting our security or helping our veterans. I’ll thank you for the spirited discussion. In my opinion the neoconservative worldview is failed and outdated. Times do change and when military interventions don’t produce the results we want it is okay to change policies. We can agree to disagree. I hope I have left a decent impression on you as an obvious Ron Paul supporter. Your opinions may frustrate some Paul supporters and I know not all of them are as civil as I have been.
I really get a kick out of these “professional analysts” who find themselves qualified enough to state Paul’s foreign policy as outdated and not modern enough for the globalized 21st century.
Personally, I’d listen to the American troops who are putting their LIVES on the line for these causes who overwhelmingly support Paul over the rest of the GOP candidates and Obama put together.
The question to ask before any war should be, “would you be willing to give your life for the cause?” If the answer is no and you still agree then it’s hypocricy
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