In the spin room after tonight’s debate Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters that they believe the Romney tax return story will end tomorrow, with the release of a single year’s returns.
He also signaled they’ll make their case on the dollar amount Romney paid in taxes, rather than the percentage of his income and the fact that he gave a lot to charity.
So what just happened?
My basic read is that the debate all happened in the first 20 or 30 minutes. Romney was brutal and totally on message, hitting a series of key attack lines where Gingrich is just extremely vulnerable. But then Newt came back and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite as on his game as his was tonight. He didn’t get a chance to have one of those Newt explosion minutes. But just for rolling with the punches, finding openings to get right back in Mitt’s face and more than anything playing that frontrunner card which must have driven Mitt to distraction. Watching it I remember thinking, wow, this is a sort of an amazing moment just in terms of political theatrics because both of them really brought their A games, both of which are very different things. Read More
10:38 PM: So many times over this. But I just don’t think Romney gets that most people don’t think it’s funny that you made someone take out a mortgage on their home. It’s low level 10k bet, like to fire people who provide me services, etc., just not funny.
10:42 PM: I think Newt helped himself with those concluding remarks.
When Mitt tried to take Newt to task for trying to make his taxes even lower than the 15% he pays now. Just not an argument that works well for Mitt.
10:31 PM: Don’t think that cut it for Mitt on what he’s done for conservatism.
From TPM Reader MF …
Despite this being a close debate, I don’t think it’s going well for Newt even if he still looks pretty good. Newt needs to run roughshod over the debates or his balloon deflates pretty quickly. His whole surge is predicated on the notion that he’s going to tell Obama he’s a foreign Muslim Communist to his face, so doing OK isn’t really going to cut it for him. In that sense Romney has an ongoing advantage even if he’s never going to look as self-satisfied as Gingrich does up there. Mitt just needs to expose a few chinks in the armor.
Newt’s biggest problem so far: no questioner has given him the chance for the big finger-pointing moment.
10:03 PM: I feel like Newt felt this was almost the chance for raging at the moderator with Beth Reinhard. But even he knew there just wasn’t enough there.
10:09 PM: Mitt’s policy is to let people “self-deport”? “If people don’t have a card and through a system determine they are here illegally they will find they can’t get work here. If they can’t get work they will self-deport to where they can get work.”
9:45 PM: Looking at that thought bubble over Newt’s head: “Brian, dude, gimme something to work with!!!”
9:48 PM: Looks like Mitt’s dancing to a different drummer on housing foreclosures?
9:52 PM: Just a short time out for the real world. The Israelis asked the US to delay the military exercises with Israel.