Last night's debate (R)
Posted: Monday, October 22, 2007 9:18 AM by Mark Murray
The Boston Globe’s lead: "The eight Republican candidates for president held a fiery debate last night filled with charges and confrontations about who is a true conservative and "real Republican" as they defended their stands on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and taxes."
The Los Angeles Times headlines the Thompson-Giuliani skirmishes. And it adds, "With groans and cheers, more than 3,000 spectators in the convention hall punctuated the scrappy back-and-forth among the candidates."
The New York Times: “The debate stood out for the intensity and personal nature of the exchanges, as Republicans tried to distinguish themselves — a tactic that risked highlighting the unhappiness among conservatives with much of the field.”
USA Today adds that the GOP hopefuls “clashed Sunday over one of their party's most basic questions: Who is the most conservative? Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee cited their conservative executive experience, while John McCain and Fred Thompson touted conservative Senate voting records — and all took shots at the presumed Democratic frontrunner.”
The Wall Street Journal: “Indeed, much of the debate was devoted to how the candidates would go about defeating Mrs. Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate who currently holds a commanding lead in national and early voting state polls.”
The New York Post calls Clinton the “‘roast’ of the town.”
Fred Thompson stood out to the Politico's Martin: "Thompson, showing a degree of passion unseen in his first debate appearance two weeks ago, offered perhaps the toughest charges of the night."
The Des Moines Register’s David Yepsen writes, “McCain had the best night. Rudy Giuliani also turned in a good performance and newcomer Fred Thompson did much better than he did in his first gabfest.” The debate “was especially unlikely to have much impact in New Hampshire, which is big Red Sox territory and where most televisions probably weren’t tuned to politics Sunday night.”
And an interesting take on Ron Paul: “Paul isn’t likely to win any of the Republican primaries and caucuses but his message resonates with mainstream voters or Democrats who aren’t rank and file GOP activists. They laugh and hoot at his messages now but come November, if the GOP loses the White House, many Republicans will be saying they should have paid attention to what the man was saying about U.S. military policy, civil liberties and spending.”
So did Fox News win many Democratic friends last night by having a segment that allowed the GOP candidates to take cheap shot after cheap shot at Clinton? That said, the segment only seemed to further the impression of the inevitability of her campaign. As the New York Times pointed out: "This debate makes it official: It’s open season on Hillary Clinton… The amount of time devoted to Mrs. Clinton makes it clear that the Republicans both want her to be the Democratic nominee and think she will be the nominee."
NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy notes that in the post-debate, there were several converts in the crowd who were won over by Fred’s surprising energy. But there were plenty of others who were merely encouraged to “lean” in Thompson’s direction after a performance in which he showed more energy than ever before.
