The first clue this debate was a disaster was when the moderators began to ask the placeholders on stage about candidates who weren’t even there: Mitt Rom-bot, Trump, Daniels, Huckabee, Bachmann, Gingrich, and Trump, again.
Quote:
Ironically for a network accused of right-wing bias, Fox may have done the Republican Party a monumental disservice. In the midst of one of the Obama administration’s greatest achievements—the killing of Osama bin Laden—the network made the Republican presidential primary look like a low-budget Star Trek convention, where only the guy who played Dr. McCoy and a bunch of extras bothered to show up. And the network’s overuse of a loud, annoying Price Is Right bell to cut candidates off in mid-sentence only added to the aura that this affair was a tawdry game show waiting for someone to mercifully hit a gong.
Quote:
Narrowly losing to Fox News for worst idea of the night was the attendance of actual legitimate contender—until tonight, at least—Tim Pawlenty. If I’d been there to watch the governor walk onto the stage, I would have screamed at him, Admiral Ackbar-style: “It’s a trap!” Undoubtedly his advisers thought the Minnesota governor would look like a president standing next to all these . . . I’m running out of synonyms for also-rans. He didn’t. His advisers also must have told Pawlenty to move his hands frequently, as if to give off a sense that he is actually animated. What does it say about our would-be presidential nominee when he couldn’t really outshine Gary Johnson (Who?)?
Quote:
I’m loath to acknowledge this, but by far the shrewdest candidate of the evening was Mitt Romney, for whatever excuse he had for ducking this mess (perhaps because he couldn’t reschedule his annual tune-up.) For the first time in four years, I actually missed him, his metallic hair, and his traveling Power Point caravan.
The most notable fact of the whole encounter, however, is this: Donald Trump would have outshone any of them without even trying. I’m not sure what that says about the status of the GOP race in 2012, but it definitely isn’t good.
