GOP Debate: McCain wins varsity, Huckabee the JV

[Commentary] John McCain has recovered his straight-talk swagger. And Mike Huckabee could compete against a resurrected William Jennings Bryan when it comes to throwing the God card with just the right spin, at just the right time.

The Republican Presidential Debate in New Hampshire Tuesday actually played out more like a winter Friday night in an Iowa gymnasium with a varsity and junior varsity match-up.

Suiting up for the GOP “A Team” were U.S. Sen. John McCain, Ariz., former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Analyzing the debate is a necessarily subjective business but I have assigned points to the candidates’ answers based on several factors,  a sort political gymnastics judging with the old East Germans around to cheat the system.

Candidates were evaluated on appeal to the base, vision, humor and style, clever one-liners and presidential gravitas.

Here is how they fared:

The Varsity

1. McCain

The former Navy war hero started with a first inning home run on a question from a New Hampshire woman who lost her brother in Iraq. He touched the GOP base with his lines that if U.S. policy fails the evildoers will “follow us home” and that Iraq, in the wake of withdrawal, will be a “base for terrorism." McCain noted that he didn’t call Bosnia “Clinton’s War” during the 1990s, a direct reference to an HRC comment Sunday night about Iraq being GWB’s war. He got off a good line, “Nations lose wars, and nations have the consequences of failure.

The senator was forceful, unapologetic, on immigration.

His good lines here: “For us to do nothing is silent and defacto amnesty.” And, “It is our job to do the hard things.”

McCain earned points in the energy arena by promoting nuclear power. No one else raised this and there are some GOPers who are passionate that this, not the wind and the sun, is the way to go.

The strength of McCain’s performance came near the end of it.

He’s sort of the Reggie Miller of American politics. He’s at his best playing on the road, dealing with an audience that (while embracing his hero status) is generally against him on a certain issue.

He took Congressman Tom Tancredo’s racist attack on Hispanics and turned it into a winner, noting that Hispanics have enriched the State of Arizona. Better yet, McCain urged people to visit the Vietnam War Memorial in D.C. and check out the Hispanic names.

“They have enriched our culture and our nation,” McCain said.

He also got in a solid succinct answer on how he would differ from the Bush Administration and pre-2006 GOP which got into trouble with “spending, spending, spending.”

2. Giuliani

Rudy’s most attractive trait to the Alpha Male complex that has besieged the GOP in recent decades is his don’t-look-back decisiveness.

He didn’t equivocate when asked whether invading Iraq was the right thing  to do.

“Absolutely the right thing to do,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani faced the predictable question about abortion, and his pro-choice position. As he was set to answer a question about a Rhode Island Catholic bishop’s criticism of that position, some lightening in New Hampshire knocked out his mike for a  few seconds.

“For someone who went to parochial schools all of his life this is a frightening thing,” Giuliani said. Nice improvisation.

A former prosecutor, Giuliani indicated that he would lean toward a pardon for I. Scooter Libby. Lots of Repubs think the sentence is overkill (How can a chick be an undercover agent in the first place?) Big base points here for Rudy.

He ripped the Dems for advocating what Hizzoner calls “socialized medicine.”

And Rudy made a great case for himself as a Reagan-like party builder: go on the offense against terror and keep government small.

3. Romney

If there is ever a debate exclusively on economics Mitt Romney will be the winner. I’ll declare that right now.

He’s the richest cat on the GOP side, and there’s no doubt he understands the markets better than his opponents.

He nailed a question on gas prices, noting the oil companies should be investing profits in new refineries.

Romney also has some big-picture ideas brewing about U.S. companies reaching deeper into the growing Asian market, something that is clearly tremendously appealing if Romney can put words to the tune in his head.

He’s the candidate in this field most likely to come up with a clever economic plan that grabs the imagination of the American people.

Romney loses points for admitting that he airs ads in Spanish, and for saying that his pro-life position was inspired by a debate on cloning. That’s like saying a re-run of “Star Trek” changed your mind about being tolerant to people from other countries.

He also looked skittish on Iraq, saying a straightforward question about whether we should have gone in there, was hypothetical.

 The Junior Varsity

1. Mike Huckabee.

All you need to know is Huckabee’s answer on one question. Why don’t you believe in evolution?

“In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth,” said the former Arkansas governor.

No doubt people in the GOP portion of the crowd were inspired to the start speaking in tongues after that one.

Then, in a brilliant turn, he suggested that the question about evolution wasn’t about evolution at all, but was rather some evil Chrisopher Hitchens-inspired query into whether a candidate believes in God Himself.

“If they want a candidate who doesn't believe in God there are probably plenty of choices,” Huckabee said.

These kind of answers sort of work like The Rapture. It can move you up.

2. Tom Tancredo.

Tancredo was going to be the JV player of the game until that gem from Huckabee. But I have to go with God over hate. It’s hard a call, though, when you consider the audience. Tancredo came close to talking about race-mixing. He called for a “time out” on all immigration so we can all learn English and cast the immigration debate in Barbarians At The Gate terms of “whether we will survive as a nation.”

Best of all, he said he would work to
“oust” any senator who supported  a compromise bill now before Congress.

Tancredo earns bonus points with many conservatives for saying George W. Bush is a liberal who would not be welcome in a Tancredo White House (but then again, neither would Bush’s Hispanic sister-in-law and nephew P.”

3. Jim Gilmore.

He coined the phrase, “Rudy McRomney” to mock the GOP varsity squad ,which the former conservative Virginia governor believes consists of appeasers to the left, traitors to the cause.

His mention of “clean coal” will be big in the right places,too.

4. Duncan Hunter.

Seriously, he gets points and respect for being one of the few pols to actually have a son serving in the military. Great line on a fence on the Mexican border. This California congressman wants a bigger one: “If they get across my fence we sign them up for the Olympics,” he said.

5. Sam Brownback

The Kansas senator is a heckuva nice fella who really believes in Jesus. But so is that guy who bored the hell out of you at the last Church picnic. He gets points for being part of a bi-partisan group seeking a federal plan for Iraq that divides power between warring factions. Other than that, without looking at my notes I can’t remember anything Brownback said. Doesn’t that say it all? With Huckabee on the stage, Brownback is the brown shoe beneath the black suit.

6. Tommy Thompson.

A few weeks ago I was at the Holiday Inn in Peoria, Ill., at the same time that state’s funeral directors were meeting. Thompson would have fit in there. He seems like he should be out embalming dudes, not wasting our time by running on past alleged glories as Wisconsin governor and a rather forgettable tenure at Health & Human Services. He loses major points for making a really bad joke at Bush’s expense, suggesting that W., as ex-president, shouldn’t be allowed to do foreign relations missions. No argument here Tommy, but I’m not your target audience.

The best answer he could come up with on health care is that we should all quit smoking. Excuse me while I fire up a cigarette.

7. Ron Paul.

This former libertarian candidate makes sense from time to time, like after you've had three beers while watching "Real Time" with Bill Maher on HBO. But saying that pre-emptive wars aren’t Christian just doesn’t fly in a debate in which other dudes are mulling over dropping tactical nukes on Iran. Plus, he was dressed in the shoddy, professorial fashion of the third-party candidate that he is.