The major moment of the event took place when Bret Baier essentially asked all of the candidates if they would walk away from a debt deal if they received ten dollars in spending cuts to every one dollar of taxes and all eight candidates raised their hand indicating such a deal would be unacceptable. There are only two ways to interpret this, either these people are complete idiots or they are totally lying. I suppose it could be both.
Primaries are a tricky thing. The candidate must win the support of their base to get the nomination. The problem with the GOP primary process is they have no ability to look at the overall goal of winning the presidency. If it's just about winning a primary then raise your hand when asked this question. In most respected generic polling any non-named Republican beats Obama in the 2012 election. But to show how out of touch with reality the Republican Party is at the moment, when a specific name is plugged in Obama beats all of the people currently vying to run against him on the right. Think about that for a second.
Last night was the first time a few of the candidates actually tangled with one another. It happens in every primary and is to be expected. The only surprise is how well the Republican field has done to this point of not turning on one another. I contend it's because no one has truly emerged as the clear cut front runner and no one has fallen far enough off the radar to feel they are endangered of becoming extinct. But this will change. And when it does (probably very soon with Perry entering the field) it will get ugly. It will get ugly because of the fringe element that has a lot of influence on the primary process.
To this point Mitt Romney as been perceived as the front runner. However, his numbers are far from impressive, he hovers around the 25% mark of party members that support him. Even though Romney has run a very impressive campaign to this point and maintained his front runner status, I suspect we'll see him collapse in the near future. His camp has handled him well and positioned him nicely for a run against Obama. He has held the high ground and not challenged his conservative opponents. In fact, he has done just about everything by the book to win the primary and I give a lot of props to his team. But he's going to have to find a new book as early as next week when Perry enters the scene.
Any other election cycle Romney would have already cinched the deal and basically been the nominee by now. What's different this go round is the Tea Party element. They want one of their own to get the bid (and there's nothing wrong with that). However, it is going to throw a major wrench in the process. For months I have been predicting a Tea Party candidate will win the nomination and I see nothing to make me think otherwise at this point. By the end of the month, if not sooner, I suspect Rick Perry will be the clear front runner and his support will dwarf the 25% mark that Romney has maintained. The Tea Party group will rally behind him and peel off of the other candidates in the field they were backing just so they didn't have to back Romney.
When this happens we will see some real fireworks. Romney will be forced to position himself to the left of Perry and it will cost him. The candidates that are enjoying some backing by the Tea Party at the moment will be forced to prove they are worthy enough to represent the group and they are even crazier and more incompetent than Perry in an attempt to get back in favor. It won't work but it will be damaging to the GOP. This is the problem with the Tea Party in general. It's not that they exist, it's that they exist in the Republican Party. Their influence forced eight presidential hopefuls to raise their hand in a debate and admit they are ignorant or liars. The religious right has influence in the GOP, the last time the candidates had to raise their hand to acknowledge they didn't "believe" in evolution three of them did it. But not all of them. The Tea Party has greater influence on the GOP than common sense and moderation. They are willing to have the party cut off their nose to spite their face. It is a short term vision and one that will lose them the highest office in the land in fifteen short months from now. A remarkable feat considering everything working against Obama.
To add salt to the wound Sarah Palin will enter the scene and endorse Perry. She has done nothing but position herself to become "king maker" since damaging McCain's bid for president in 2008. I'm not knocking her for this, she was minding her own business in Alaska and this was thrust upon her. I'm knocking all of the moderate conservatives that have sat back and done nothing to prevent this from happening. In the last presidential election a chunk of the base jumped ship and voted for Obama. Instead of taking notice of this and trying to figure out how to rein in the moderates and independents the GOP decided to hop in the passenger seat and hand the keys over to a drunk driver. And when they made it to their first destination, the 2010 midterms, without running into something they began to feel confidence in the driver. But backing out of the driveway and making it down the straight road is not the same as negotiating through the gridlock traffic and passing the sobriety check point that is fifteen months down the road.
For all of Obama's shortcomings, and he certainly has them, they won't even hold a candle to Rick Perry's. And as nutty as Bachmann and Cain have been during their campaigns, they are relatively new to the scene and people on the right just deal with them and view their ideas (for lack of a better word) as refreshing and not inside the beltway. Perry is different. He has been around a long time and even though he definitely can boast of some accomplishments, his gaffes and horrible ideas, not to mention his ridiculous prayer rally held last weekend, will alienate him from the moderates and independents. And the desire to not appeal to this important group that decides general elections was never as evident as it was when all eight candidates raised their hand to suggest they would never agree to anything that wasn't one hundred percent their way all of the time.
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