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I said this when I first saw it, and I'll be quite happy to repeat it here: this is disgusting. Regardless of your views on the death penalty, you surely must be in agreement with the contention that rejoicing in the death of anyone – anyone – is a repellent and repulsive act, whether in the auditorium of a debating hall or in the streets. For Perry to fail to denounce this is both politically damaging and harmful to the state of political discourse in America. Even if you agree with the death penalty, as Perry does, you simply cannot rejoice in the death of another human being. That I know for sure.
Now, on to the round-up. For Jonathan Chait, Perry's manner and appearance seemed to matter more than the substance of his message, or what he actually said:
The media seems to consider Romney the winner. Pardon the condescension, but they’re not thinking like Republican base voters. Romney approaches every question as if he is in an actual debate, trying to provide the most intellectually compelling answer available, within the bounds of political expediency. Perry treats questions as interruptions. What scientists do you trust on climate change? I don’t want to risk the economy. Are you taking a radical position on social security? We can have reasons or we can have results. His total liberation from the constraints of reason give Perry a chance to represent the Republican id in a way Romney simply cannot match.
In this way Perry eerily apes the style of George W. Bush, who was also mocked for his intellectually vapid debating style, but who succeeded in rallying Republicans behind him. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I suspect the Bush-Perry debating style broadcasts a subliminal message of strong leadership. Romney feels compelled to bind himself to the parameters of the question before him. Perry ignores them. It is, in a sense, an alpha male move. I am not going to lower myself to your premise about scientists. I am going to declare my principles.
Dave Weigel rules out Bachmann:Mitt Romney looked like he had already won the Republican nomination. Rick Perry looked like he will win the Republican nomination. Michele Bachmann looked like she was beginning to realize she definitely wouldn’t win the Republican nomination.
Hate to agree with the conventional wisdom, but unless something torpedoes Perry, she's no longer a factor in the race. The mannered efforts to pretend that some congressional battles have given her all the experience she needs to serve are just unbearably weak with three governors onstage.And on Jon Huntsman:
With fairly sympathetic questions, and a much tighter set of responses than he brought at the last debate, he reaffirmed that he will be all things to swing voters, the Republican that Democrats can stand. If I'm a standard Republican primary voter, I hate him with the heat of 1,000 suns.Althouse, somewhat less astute, but all the while interesting:
My overall impression? The moderators tried to provoke a war amongst Republicans, and Gingrich was the hero of the evening by calling them out. I thought Huntsman did himself some good, and Bachmann for some reason didn't find a way to stand out. The main focus was on Perry and Romney — in part because the moderators made that happen. And I think Romney looked better than Perry. As they say, he seemed presidential. He had a lot of poise and he made plenty of sense. Perry seemed rough, but it was his first go round.Stephen Green, who I'll quote in the interest of political diversity:
Maybe that has more to do with Obama than any of candidates themselves — and I suspect that it does. But I’ll take this opportunity to quote Robert Heinlein, who said that the difference between bad and worse is much greater than the difference between good and better. And most any of these candidates — even Santorum, whom I despise, and Huntsman, who I think is useless at best — rises above Heinlein’s level of “bad.”Josh Marshall, of TPM, weighs in:
here wasn't quite as much pyrotechnics as one might have expected or as folks in the press probably would have liked. But on balance I'd say this was a strategic victory for Mitt Romney, even if it doesn't show up immediately in the polls. Mitt didn't do anything that amazing himself. But Perry doubled down, maybe tripled down on his frontal attack on Social Security and science in general. Romney moved in, in essence, to egg him on in that process. And the Romney press office let loose a fusillade of attacks in emails to the press.That's it for now. See you at the next one.