New Hampshire Debates Round #2 – What a Difference Between Night & Day!

There is probably a clever way to start this blog comparing politicians to vampires, but I haven’t had enough sleep to think of one, so I’ll just fall back on Bill Bennett’s line that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

For all his smoothness last night in New Hampshire at delivering conservative rhetoric extremely, extremely well, the Mitt Meister was not on his best game at all this morning. He was so good last night that he even avoided that look of constipation or annoyed boredom (I can’t tell which it is) he seems to always have when listening to a question or another candidate. I was so glad to see it replaced by the pleasant look he had last night.

But “the look” was back this morning from the very first question.

I thought I was going to need a barf bag when listening to Romney’s soliloquy about how he is not a politician and chose not to run again for Governor because he wanted to be in the private sector. THANK YOU NEWT GINGRICH for being willing to call him out on that nonsense and remind both Romney and the world that Mit would have been a lifelong politician if he was electable enough to have won more than one of the many elections he’s been in since the early 1990’s! My favorite line of the morning debate was from Newt: “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?”

Mitt did not help himself or the GOP by responding to Newt with a trite remark about being “happy” he made Ted Kennedy take out a mortgage on his house in order win the race. Just what we need, another example for Obama to use against Romney as the rich, fat cat actually enjoying the process of forcing people to take out a second mortgage? $10,000 bets, forcing people to take out mortgages, $200 Million Dollar man, and made millions laying off people through Bain Capitol. The dems are licking their chops.

Santorum had the chance to come into these NH debates as the surprise victory boy wonder that should have been smiling and shining and projecting an extremely positive message and vision. Instead, he stayed in his defensive toned attack mode that left him viewed as part of the petty bickering, rather than the optimistic alternative. Santorum’s choice of language in calling Ron Paul “disgusting” coupled with his demeanor is a guaranteed losing formula. When he interrupts over and over again, he thinks it shows him as tough, but it just comes across as whiny and petty over and over again. He did, however, do extremely well in handling that tired old liberal question of what would you do if your son came to you and said he was gay. Ironically, he handled this line of questioning far better than Mitt Romney who is self proclaimed champion of gay rights.

Rick Perry was at the best he’s been and for the first time in this race, he was the best on the stage. Two stellar debate performances within a 15 hour period just may get people to give him a second look. Perry’s first answer was superb in taking David Gregory’s “who is electable” question back to what caused the Tea Party victories of 2010. My second favorite line of the debate was Perry saying that Obama had poured gas on the bonfire of out of control spending that had already been lit and burning because of the Washington insiders on the stage. Perry also did a great job in describing the American people want jobs, not a handout. They want the dignity of providing for their family and he made a succinct, coherent argument for why he is the only guy on the stage that has executive experience creating the right environment for job growth. His best applause lines were both times he drove home the need and benefits of Right to Work.

Newt was at his best putting people (and the EPA) in their place (whether Mitt’s faux non-politician argument or the moderators ridiculous questions), but he also shown incredibly well when laying out just how bad Obama’s job killing energy policy has hurt the nation and with one breath in 30 seconds he lays out both the solution and a defense of supply-side economics. The man really has no rhetorical equal in this race or in my lifetime.

Huntsman had an extremely good moment early in the morning debate when he responded to Romney’s attack for Huntsman “putting his country first.” His daughter also did a great job on Fox News defending her father and their family from the absolutely embarrassing and over the top Ron Paul attack ads that included the Huntsman’s adopted children. That’s all the nice things I can come up for Huntsman, so I’ll move on!

The New Hampshire vote is 48 hours away, but I’m not that anxious or excited because it is not likely to have any real impact on the race. There is a very small chance that Huntsman does well enough to keep going, but my bet is that he’s done by the end of the week. There is also a small chance that Santorum could do really well and prove himself a viable candidate, but I personally think his betting on New Hampshire at all was a mistake. He will do poorly and it will cause more doubts for him. New Hampshire means nothing for Perry and not much for Newt, unless Santorum can crash sooner, rather than later, so we still have a chance at getting an alternative to Romney that can actually win.

So the real fun begins in South Carolina on Wednesday!

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