COMMENTARY | The Washington Post-Bloomberg Republican presidential debate was held on October 11, 2011, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. The eight remaining 2012 Republican presidential candidates debated economic issues as they sat around a round, wooden table. The premise of the debate was U.S. economic policy. The presidential candidates were Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Questions were dished out and moderated by Charlie Rose, Karen Tumulty, and Julianna Goldman.
Overall, the debate made it clear to me that the serious presidential contenders are Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. I will go further and say that Mitt Romney will be the ‘guy to beat’ in the upcoming Republican primaries. This assessment is based on the number of questions that were directed at Romney by both the moderators and the other candidates. While Perry did receive a lot of questions, the debate pigeon-holed him as a one-dimensional candidate: He wants to deregulate the energy industry in order to make the U.S. energy-independent. Herman Cain received a lot of negative attention about his ‘9-9-9′ plan. Bachmann, Paul, and Huntsman were given questions, but they were certainly not in the spotlight. Through only his authoritative demeanor did Gingrich effortlessly inject his thoughts into the debate; he and Rick Santorum weren’t given many opportunities to speak. Santorum is a man with plenty of interesting plans and he is well spoken. The moderators just didn’t give him the microphone. He literally complained about not being given any chances to speak.
Three issues stood out to me during this debate:
Every candidate agreed that Obamacare had to go. Governor Huntsman was the only one who stated that he thought that the destructive mandates of Obamacare were already in place and that even a full repeal of the bill would not stop those mandates. He received a lot of disagreement from many of the candidates over that comment. The Republican proposal that received the most mention in the debate was Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan. One humorous comment against it came from Michele Bachmann, who asked what you get when you turn 9-9-9 upside down (you get 6-6-6). She stated that “…the devil’s in the details…” Rick Santorum got a rise from the audience when he held a mock election to adopt the 9-9-9 plan. No one voted for it. The mention of China’s currency policies sparked a lot of debate and varied responses by the candidates. Governor Huntsman came across to me as pro-Chinese. Mitt Romney claimed that on day one of his presidency he would sign an executive order that would proclaim China as a currency manipulator.