Eight presidential candidates fighting for the Republican nomination met on stage in New Hampshire for a Republican presidential debate focused almost entirely on the number one issue in the country, the economy.
Heading in, there were several key dynamics observers were looking for. Would Rick Perry bounce back from his lackluster (or even disastrous) debate performances so far? How would Herman Cain fare as a top-tier candidate? Would Mitt Romney take a swing at Cain?
Here are some of the answers, and the lessons we learned in the New Hampshire debate.
1. Herman Cain’s honeymoon is over
It’s easy to like Herman Cain when he’s a charismatic third-tier candidate. But now that he’s surging to leads in multiple state polls and climbing the national rankings as well, the free ride is over. Ron Paul ripped him for his time with the Kansas City Federal Reserve, his opposition to auditing the Fed, and for praising former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan. Rick Santorum said Cain’s “9-9-9” plan would “give the federal government, Nancy Pelosi, a new pipeline, a 9 percent sales tax for consumers to get hammered by the federal government.” And even before the debate, Democrats finally began to notice Cain’s existence and put out some attacks of their own. Up to this point, Cain’s biggest strength has been that the more voters see of him, the more they like him. Will this stay true after his rivals pile on?
2. Rick Perry needs more practice
Despite pre-debate promises from Team Perry that their candidate would be well-rested and ready to rock, Perry just didn’t deliver Tuesday. His answers were still confusing jumbles and he didn’t seem to have a lot of energy near the end. This was not the debate that proved Perry can debate; it was the debate that proved he still can’t.
3. Mitt Romney’s rooting for Michele Bachmann
When it came time for the candidates to ask each other a question near the middle of the debate, Romney ignored the two men closest to him in the polls (Cain and Perry) and lobbed a slow-pitch softball right at Bachmann. “What do you do to help the American people get back to work, be able to make ends meet?” he asked. Bachmann launched into her stump speech, and Romney gave a bump to a candidate he’d like to see split the Perry vote in Iowa.
4. TARP is back!
Remember TARP, the bailout plan that is the thing that goes bump in the night for tea partiers? Turns out the two men at the top of the GOP field (Romney and Cain) were for it. Awkward! Under questioning from debate moderator Charlie Rose, Cain and Romney had the unenviable job of laying out their reasoning for publicly backing the program that is pure poison to a large part of their base. Both men answered with a variation of “I supported the theory, but hated how it was put into practice.” It’s not clear if that answer will satisfy those who think any support for a bailout makes you a certified RINO.
5. Newt Gingrich will say anything for attention
Newt Gingrich’s campaign has been clinging for life ever since he called Paul Ryan’s budget “right wing social engineering,” but he’s finally found a faint pulse thanks to his tactic of belligerently condemning his debate hosts. On Tuesday, he turned his guns on his former colleagues in Congress, however, with an outrageous answer in which he called for the imprisonment of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and ex-Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). His remarks prompted Frank to go on a tirade of his own slamming the “self-styled intellectual leader of the free world” for his “very odd” comments.
