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The South Carolina Debate

by Ryan Sager
Tue, 15 May 2007 at 9:00 PM
updated Tue, 15 May 2007 at 9:01 PM

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9:00: Brit Hume = awesome.

9:05: Fox will not be seeking comment on Falwell. Let's guess there will be some anyway.

9:06: McCain on Iraq: "They want to follow us home." We've heard this before. Many times. "I will be the last man standing, if necessary."

9:08: Romney on Iraq: "I'm certainly not going to project failure."

9:10: Senator Brownback's answer — heavy on criticism of Senator Reid — gets the first cowbell of the night.

9:11: Rudy's response on Iraq criticizes the Democrats for announcing our retreat and touches at some length on the planned terrorist attack on Fort Dix. Good way to reach back to his prosecutor background.

9:12: Tom Tancredo opposes the surge. He's asked to defend his position.

9:13: Tancredo: "I will support our troops."

9:14: Chris Wallace wants to know if Ron Paul is running in the wrong party's primary, because he opposed the original Iraq resolution.

9:14: Paul argues the war has shrunk the Republican base — based on the 2006 election. And he praises Reagan for pulling out of Lebanon. Cow bell.

9:16: Is Mike Huckabee willing to listen to the generals if they want many more troops? Huckabee says yes. And a shot at Bush: "We're doing a lot of things over. Maybe we should have just done it right."

9:17: Jim Gilmore is talking. I've got a fever, and the only cure is ... more cowbell.

9:18: Wendell Goler wants to know if Romney has flip flopped by taking a no-new-taxes pledge in this race, when he refused to do so when running for governor in 2002.

9:19: Romney: "I want to make it very clear that I'm not going to raise taxes." Also points out that he didn't raise taxes in Massachusetts and they balanced the budget. This is a pitch for Manager Mitt: "How about benchmarks in Washington. ... Let's streamline and make Washington more efficient." Shorter Mitt: Let's run Washington the way the Democrats want to run Iraq. [UPDATE: Fiscal watchdog groups in Massachusetts would say Romney did raise corporate taxes, calling it "closing loopholes."]

9:20: Now Wendell wants to know from McCain why he said he was wrong on Bush's tax cuts back in 2001. (He never said that.)

9:20: McCain: "First of all, I didn't say that I was wrong." McCain says he opposed those tax cuts in 2001 because Congress hadn't held down spending. Letting the Bush tax cuts expire would be a tax increase, he says. We didn't lose 2006 because of Iraq, we lost because government changed the Republican Party (as opposed to the other way around).

9:21: McCain repeats his whole bit about drunken sailors taking offense at being compared to Congress. You can read it from the first debate transcript here. This is a real theme with McCain, trotting out the same tired lines again and again.

9:22: Best line of the night so far, from Mike Huckabee: "We've had a Congress that's spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop." Huge applause from the crowd.

9:23: Giuliani gets a tough question about his spending in his second term. He immediately cites the Club for Growth report from yesterday. Giuliani says 50% of federal employees are going to retire in the next 10 years (is this true?). He pledges not to fill 50% of them. (So, how plausible is that? Not to fill 25% of federal jobs?)

9:27: Ron Paul is asked if he would like to close any departments... would he ever.

9:29: Gilmore again. I refuse to write anything about his substantive positions until someone tells me who this guy is and why he's here.

9:30: Oh. He says he's "a consistent conservative." Now I care.

9:31: Gilmore plugs his Web site. Cue the cowbell.

9:38: Giuliani gets in a good line after Gilmore goes off on how none of the other candidates are real conservatives. "I think Rudy McRomney wouldn't make a bad ticket." And, he says, he doesn't mind the order. "There are ways we can work together."

9:40: Chris Wallace wants to know how McCain squares his positions (campaign-finance reform, immigration, opposing Bush's tax cuts) with the idea that he's a conservative.

9:41: McCain says he'll "reach across the aisle." What this is really about, he says, is "who's prepared to lead?" He says: "My life, my experience, my knowledge of the military and national security qualifies me most to lead."

9:43: On gay rights: He opposes discrimination, but wants to preserve marriage.

9:47: Goler asks Giuliani about abortion. Rudy sounds a lot less flustered than last time. He keeps hammering his experience in New York City — reducing abortions, increasing adoptions, and saying that people of good conscience can come to different conclusions. As usual, he's not going to win single-minded pro-lifers. But he just may be able to put the issue behind him.

9:48: The first proof Giuliani's strategy is working: Mike Huckabee saying that though he's not swayed by Rudy's reasoning, "He's been honest about his opinion, he's been honest about his position. And I think that's a healthy thing for our party and for this debate."

9:50: Brownback is asked to defend his position of banning abortion even in cases of rape — to a woman who's been raped. Echoes of the Bush-Dukakis debate. His essential response: It's still a life and should be protected.

9:51: Romney is asked what he'd say if someone's family member died trying to get an illegal abortion after he appointed the justice who helped overturn Roe v. Wade. (He used to say such a tragedy in his family was why he was pro-choice.)

9:52: Romney gave his standard answer on his abortion conversion, referencing his horror at the idea of human cloning and embryo experimentation.

9:57: Romney says McCain-Kennedy would do to immigration what McCain-Feingold did to campaign-finance. Not sure how exactly the metaphor works, other than that conservative think both ideas are bad.

9:58: McCain takes a nice little swipe at Romney: "I haven't changed my position on even-numbered years, or changed because of the different offices that I may be running for." An "oooooo" from the audience and some applause.

9:59: Giuliani thanks Tom Tancredo for saying he's soft on immigration — it is, he says, the first time anyone's called him soft on anything in his political career. Maybe, he speculates, it will help his political persona.

10:02: Goler asks Paul, for the second time this evening, why he's running as a Republican.

10:02: Paul makes the case for isolationist foreign policy. Robert Taft didn't want to be in NATO. George W. Bush ran on a "humble" foreign policy. We were attacked on 9/11 because of our foreign policy.

10:03: Giuliani is pissed. He's jumping in here.

10:03: "That is an extraordinary statement. ... I don't think I've ever heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11." Huge applause. Biggest of the night. Asks Paul to withdraw his comment.

10:04: Paul isn't going to. Our foreign policy creates blowback.

10:05: An Internet question is read as to whether South Carolina should be allowed to fly the Confederate flag from state buildings. Big boo from the audience. They are sick of this topic.

10:06: McCain: "I think it's time we all moved on on this issue." Gets a big applause. But that's just because South Carolina Republicans are sick of how the issue makes them look. Substantively, this looks like another pander for McCain — be it one that will serve him well in the South Carolina primary.

10:14: The last round of the debate comes to you from the network that brings you "24." Shopping centers around the U.S. have been bombed. We have suspects in custody. We think a bigger attack is planned. CTU is on it. Jack Bauer has gone rogue...

10:15: McCain would not torture. He is, of course, eloquent. "It's about what kind of country we are."

10:15: Giuliani: "I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of." No specific answer on waterboarding. Big applause from the audience.

10:16: Romney: The point is prevention — we should never be in such a situation. He's glad the terrorists are in Guantanamo, where they don't have access to courts and lawyers. "We ought to double Guantanamo." Big applause. The president has to make the call, and "enhanced interrogation techniques" must be used, "not torture." What's the difference? That's the question no one wants to answer.

10:26: Tancredo supports torture: "I'm looking for Jack Bauer."

10:29: Chris Wallace asks whether Romney has ever changed his positions in a way less popular with the GOP base.

10:29: Romney offers up that he supports President Bush's No Child Left Behind act. That is unpopular with the base. But no profile-in-courage award for agreeing with President Bush.

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