Rudy Wins; Thompson Loses, Everyone Else Loses, Too
by Ryan Sager
Tue, 5 Jun 2007 at 10:20 PM
updated Tue, 5 Jun 2007 at 10:21 PM
I said it at the end of my live-blogging post, and I'll say it again: Rudy Giuliani won that debate hands down. If you have any doubt, stop by the generally Rudy-skeptical Corner tonight.
Whether it was Iraq, immigration, health care, or whatever, he just sounded so much more relaxed and in command of the situation than the other candidates that it was ridiculous. Even when the abortion question came up — one might not have liked the substance of his answer, but he was confident in his convictions while giving it (he was also helped by that lightning strike during his answer, which lightened the mood).
As for the other candidates, one would have to give John McCain second place. While the sheer amount of time spent on immigration wasn't good for him, he got to talk a lot about Iraq and service and the military — and he's always good when he's on those themes. Even on immigration, it's hard to miss that this guy's doing what he thinks is right. That's the product voters are buying when it comes to Mr. McCain, I think they got a lot of it last night.
Out of the Big Three, Mr. Romney was clearly the third. From prevaricating on the Iraq question at the beginning to prevaricating on the Spanish-language-ad question toward the end, he simply did himself no favors. I don't remember him getting off one good line. I do remember him seeming overly slick.
From the second/third-tier, as usual they didn't matter.
The biggest loser of the night, in my opinion, was Fred Thompson. Mr. Giuliani was so strong, and John McCain so eloquent, and Mitt Romney so slick, that a new candidate really has to justify why they'd be getting in so late. I'll be posting my column on this shortly, but Mr. Thompson's "Hannity & Colmes" appearance just didn't do the trick. It would have been better to stay home and wait for the next debate than to set-up his own special forum, separate from the other candidates.
UPDATE: Here's my column on Thompson's Hannity appearance.
Related Topics: GOP Primary
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