She Wants To Debate

Sen. Clinton now wants to debate. Before when she was the front-runner, she wanted to keep them to a minimum. Sen. Obama doesn't want to debate. He'll probably win this one and they'll cut back on the number of debates, even though there's one scheduled on MSNBC next week.

Sen. Clinton believes that she performs well in Debates, with Sen. Obama, under-performing due to the heightened expectations that he receives in a debate-setting. (When compared to his speeches, he can't put out a great line in every sentence he utters in the midst of wonky details which comprise such a debate.) Sen. Clinton also believes that the ABC News debate the weekend before New Hampshire helped put her over-the-top. Maybe more debates can re-capture that magic, and make her a contender once again.

Here are the ads that went up in Wisconsin concerning the debates. The first is Sen. Clinton's followed by Sen. Obama's rebuttal.

Son of Reagan

They mentioned his name in homage twenty times. There were ten of them. You do the math.

Ronald Wilson Reagan really did something to this country. He really did something to the Republican Party. Republicans have made him a deity. And standing there with SAM (Special Air Mission) 27000 facing them throughout the debate, one couldn't but escape that they all lived in his shadow. That they all wanted to be the son of Reagan.

SAM 27000, better known by its call-sign Air Force One, carried Richard Nixon from Washington to California when he resigned the presidency in 1974. It served Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush (41). It was the plane that carried Reagan from Washington to Berlin where he implored Chairman Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" And there it was, inside the hanger where the debate took place. The ten of them knew that they were in the presence of history.

And there's no better way to succeed in the Republican Party today than to look to the past, and to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Everyone knows this. Stanley Greenberg, who used to spent his time in the 1990's serving as President Clinton's pollster wrote, The Two Americas, and in it, he clearly laid out the advantages to being the Son of Reagan. He argued--and I believe he is clearly prescient and brilliant--that Republicans must not fight the notion of "Two Americas," (in this sense taking another meaning from Edwards' worn-out stump speech) but rather embrace the Two Americas. We live in a divided nation. And all one party needs to do to win the presidency is to get the plurality. The Republican party is a party built on coalitions, but one thing that unites most all sectors, the economic conservatives and the social conservatives and the hawks, etc. is Ronald Reagan. Continuing with the metaphor that was used to death yesterday, he was the Republican Party's modern day messiah.

To be the son of Reagan means that you believe in Big Issues and a Sense of Purpose (see our current president). To be the son of Reagan means that you place an importance on the issue of faith and protecting religious practices. To be the son of Reagan means you believe in tax cuts and entrepreneurship and in business-led prosperity. To be the son of Reagan means you believe in a strong military and America's commitment to freedom.

And boy, they were all the sons of Reagan's last night.

Coverage today even took the position of who looked like Reagan the most. Alessandra Stanley bestowed that honor on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, saying he had:

...the tan, the Brylcreem hair, the straight white teeth and a voice so smooth and friendly it sounds as if he makes his living doing voice-overs for car
commercials. After the debate, Mr. Romney was the first to bolt across the stage
to shake hands with Nancy Reagan.

At the same time I found it interesting that as much as everyone was thinking about Reagan, no one was thinking about Bush being the anti-Reagan in a sense. It's a weird fate for Bush. During the 2000 campaign pundits all said that he was more the son of Reagan than the son of Bush. Today with his approval rates sinking and he's seen as more and more out of step with America, I figure Bush is Carter. And it's 1980 all over again. The big thing about 1980 of course was the sense of malaise. Nothing was going right. And from the west Reagan came promising that it would be "morning again in America." John McCain tried hitting that scene when he kept on talking about optimism. So did Gov. Romney. But while they respected President Bush last night, they did that with a grain of salt. Sen. McCain is walking a tight-rope. He's one of the president's staunchest supporter on the war in Congress. So much so that the fictional character Denny Crane on ABC's Boston Legal surmised that "McCain speaks Bush now." And that that might hurt in the election.

It was a little scary, the debate, I'll admit. All of them, when asked if Roe v. Wade being overturned would be a good thing for America were in the affirmative. Sen. Sam Brownback (who's not going anywhere) said "It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom." And on it went. Romney and Giuliani were a little more tepid in their responses. Giuliani's response: "I'd be OK." To which he was asked to elaborate on what he meant, and what he said he meant went along the lines of this being a Federalist government, and that it's up to the courts to decide and he'd go along with whatever decision the courts would make. This coming from the man who while mayor of New York City supported public funding for Abortions. This point illuminates how difficult it is for the social moderates and liberals in the Republican party to capture the base.

Another scary moment came when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator Brownback, and Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo (all three not going anywhere either), raised their hands saying that they don't believe in Evolution.

Sen. McCain and Rudy Giuliani were the only candidates who, with Nancy Reagan sitting in the front row, said that they would support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Something which Nancy Reagan advocates for, and something that drew this president's veto for the first time in office. (The other veto came this week when he returned to congress the Democratic War Spending Bill.)

On the issue of immigration, McCain also drew fire from his fellow presidential aspirants. It's popular in some parts of the Republican Party to refer to the comprehensive immigration bill which the President and Sen. McCain support as the "Kennedy McCain" or "McCain Kennedy" bill. Standing up there with Tancredo, the staunchest anti-illegal immigrants crusader in the presidential candidate field sure drew the ire of McCain. One of my favorite parts came up when they asked McCain if he'd be comfortable if Tancredo headed the immigration service. McCain's response: "In a word, no."

It was a pretty standard debate. No fireworks. No quotes that will be repeated for a couple more news cycles. Except probably, McCain's promise to "follow Bin Laden to the Gates of Hell." But it was a nice starter for the Republicans.

I'll leave you with this: It's been said that you'd have to be crazy to run for president. Apparently, Vanity Fair believes that Rudy Giuliani really is.