To say Mitt Romney had a bad debate last night is an understatement for the ages. Some of the best moments came when Mitt was getting so knocked around that he seemed to forget which side of the argument he was arguing.
Sometimes as a debating technique one will embrace an opponents contention only to flip around the significance of the fact as a point in your own defense. But there were several times — most notably in the fracas over ‘amnesty’ with John McCain — where Mitt basically fell into arguing McCain’s point for him and then didn’t seem to have any follow up to explain why this didn’t mean McCain was right and he was wrong. It was like the rhetorical equivalent of getting so punch drunk that you start walking into the other guy’s punches.
Mitt’s big point in his argument with McCain was that his (i.e., Romney’s) attack ads didn’t really say McCain’s bill was ‘amnesty’ like McCain claimed. And given how much Mitt hung on this semantic point, I figured he had to be right. And McCain did not seem to directly contradict. But apparently on This Week this morning, Mitt had to come clean and admit he was wrong. It did say amnesty.
At TNR, Noam Scheiber says he thinks actual voters will react more negatively to the attackers than to the hapless Mitt as the target of the attacks. And I certainly hope he’s right. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Thompson, of all the attackers seemed cocky and a bit of a prick. But Thompson is cocky and a prick. So I guess that shouldn’t be surprising. What made him seem that way in this case was that in his jibes against Romney he didn’t even seem to have any real points to make. Mitt was just already getting knocked around so much that he figured it would be fun to get in a few whacks too.
What struck me more about McCain and Huckabee’s attacks were that they felt very personal. As a lot of other commentators have noted, it was hard not to get the sense that these guy’s really don’t like Mitt. And my hunch is that rather than feel sorry for Mitt or think badly of the other guys, voters’ first sense would be to think: wow, they all really hate this guy. I wonder why?
Both in my Mitt-supporting alter-ego and in my real desire for how this race plays out I’m rooting for Mitt. But I fear Mitt has fallen and cannot get up. Hope I’m wrong, of course. And I’m going to have my ear to the ground for signs of resurgent Mittmentum.
