Republicans debated in Orlando, Florida tonight on FOX News.
Soren Dayton liveblogged the debate.
Rett Hatcher of race42008.com posted a few early reactions from conservative blogs, including RedState and the National Review’s Campaign Spot.
Tonight’s GOP debate was truly the Huckabee and McCain show. Huck demonstrated the same smooth, articulate, can-sell-snake-oil-to-a-merchant demeanor that has propelled him to where he is now: one of the Big Five that actually deserves to still be attending these debates
[...]
NRO:Mike Huckabee: After the FRC summit, he’s the social conservative choice, and if he gets the nomination, Hillary won’t know what hit her. This guy can sell ice to Eskimos. Kept his momentum, and played against his “the funny one” typecasting with his argument, “there’s nothing funny about Hillary Clinton as Commander in Chief.” [emphasis added]
The unifying theme: Mike Huckabee has a smooth talkin’, car salesman-like quality to him — and we like that!
Republican obsession over Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) continued tonight. GOP candidates (and the conservative moderators) have essentially declared the Democratic nomination over as they mentioned her name 27 times and never uttered the names of her fellow Democratic candidates. Not once.
Speaking of the Republican candidates and Hillary, Rep. Ron Paul argued that he is to the left of the junior senator from New York on Iraq.
MSNBC’s Erin McPike wonders just how important Iraq is to FOX News:
Just asking: Was the only mention of Iraq so far (with just twenty minutes left) the question posed to Ron Paul about his opposition to the war and the similarities/differences with Hillary?
To be fair, I missed the first 15 minutes so I cannot say unequivocally, but I can only recall it being brought up tangentially or in relation to other foreign policy questions.
Here are a few clips from the debate worth watching.
Republicans in attendance boo the American people: Ron Paul cited polling that shows over 70 percent of Americans want the to begin withdrawing U.S. forces.
Senator McCain came away with probably the most memorable line from the debate.
Something to say?
