The New Hampshire Debates

The New Hampshire Debates

Here are my quick thoughts on the debates tonight.

Republicans:

Well I now understand why Huckabee is doing so well. The man has a solid solid presence and frankly I would say he had the best mix of 'in touch' and presidential demeanor. His religious bearing/history mixed with a fair amount of Arkansas dirty laundry concerns me. Romney is a tool... I just can't think of any other way to put it. He is the definition of a slick politician and everyone, I mean EVERYONE on the stage took pot shots at him the whole night. Ron Paul, how do you do him justice? These are the three I didn't know and Ron Paul is the one that still has me scratching my head. He is very feisty but the question remains, is he just feisty or is he foaming at the mouth mad bonkers and a stark raving mad economic ludite? I will have to look harder at him because he is damn smart, and his background says he isn't nutz. Part of me would like to see someone like him go in and take a sledgehammer to existing beauracracies, but part of me really cringes to think what a bull in china shop approach would do. All in all its proabbly an event you would rather read about in a history book than live through... but it might just be time for something like that. Guiliani, I said it before and I will say it again. He is following last years play book. He is trying to follow the established road to the presidency and has not seemed to fully grasp the fact that this round is going to be different. If the old playbook were working then Barak Obama would not have just taken a primary with a clear lead. Change is the word and he aint it. McCain is McCain. Venerable veteran who is getting better at the national stage every time he goes through this... if he had another 10 or so goes I think he might finally put it all together. I am starting to like him as a VP choice... I honestly think he would make a decent president but I just don't think he will ever put the votes together. Fred Thompson surprised me a bit, he was pretty solid but he has much the same problem Giliani has and the man just isn't 'with it'. He is smart, and he is Washington smart. But I don't think he is front man material.

Democrats:

Richardson is toast baring some miracle... perhaps a VP selection. Edwards is not quite there. he is passionate but he is no longer as carefree in his speaking as he once was. He kept going off on 'I don't want to leave anyone out or offend anyone' tangents during otherwise good responses. He clearly stepped into Obama's camp and sniped Clinton on multiple ocasions, perhaps an indication of things to come? Clinton did well. She definatly lost her temper a couple of times but I really don't think that is a bad thing. As long as she doesn't stick her foot in her mouth in the heat of passion I can think of worse things than a well spoken indignant candidate. She just doesn't have the 'slickness' of her Husband and if she keeps the lid on her temper to much it will just draw attention to how much less accomplished she is at the glass facade political game. She is going to have to fight hard to proove she is still an agent of change because one thing she isn't is 'fresh'. Sure she has the whole 'First Female for President' thing going on but hell... most folks have already cracked jokes about her already having served two terms as president. It is going to be interesting to see how well her experience card plays out. Obama is one smooth dude. He certainly doesn't come across as green. He has the kind of charisma political campaign managers have wet dreams about. He is starting to fill out the details of his positions and his ideas of how he wants to handle being president. But he needs to do more on this front. The cloudy poupular agent of change image will take him a bit farther yet but before long he has GOT to silence the growing volume of calls asking for more details on just how he is going to 'change' things.

All in all I think the Democrats have got to be happy that finally they seem to have the better crop of candidates. The Republicans have a good candidate... if you could combine all the strengths of the guys that were on stage. And apart from Ron Paul none of them had that air of something new going on. However despite the Romney attacks I think the air was FAR more charged with the dems on the stage. They have the ability to pull their party apart if they are not careful. And I don't mean pull apart as in be devisive... I mean a full on party split that could end us up with two candidates and perhaps a new party. If they do manage to split the party then the race dynamics are going to seriously favor the republican nominee unless there is a real cross party movement for someone. Strap yourselves in folks. This is going to be a long and rather interstin ride.