FrumForum is asking its regular contributors and readers what questions should be asked of the candidates at the next GOP debate on Thursday, September 22nd. This is our second collection of questions.
Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin is unhappy with the state of the Republican Presidential field and so has come up with a roadmap for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to enter in at the last minute and sweep the primaries and election.
The sheer scale of the plan that Rubin is proposing makes clear that the GOP field is largely stuck. Here is what Christie (or any other last minute candidate) is up against.
It’s well established that the Republican Party of 2011 is a far cry from the party of the George W. Bush years. Nowhere is this clearer than the fact that the conservative choice of 2008, Mitt Romney, is now widely perceived as a moderate.
This got me thinking, what would the 2012 GOP debates look like if the Twenty-Second Amendment was repealed and former President Bush left the Bush Center and his Dallas home to hit the hustings for a third term?
David Frum
September 14th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
45 Comments
Democrats horrified by a proposed change in the assignment of Electoral College votes in Pennsylvania seem to have forgotten they tried the exact same trick in Colorado in 2004.
David Frum
September 13th, 2011 at 9:01 am
89 Comments
Here’s a sharp observation at National Journal about last night’s GOP debate:
In the most pivotal moment of the debate, Romney laid a trap for Perry by asking if he was going to “retreat’’ from the idea that Social Security is an unconstitutional federal program that should be turned over to the states.
It was as if Romney had waved a red flag in front of the typically hard-charging Perry, who balked instead of lunging forward. First he mocked the idea that the New Deal was beyond reproach, but then he said “obviously we’re not going to take away’’ such an institution. “I think we ought to have a conversation.’’ Perry said.
Romney interrupted with perhaps his best line of the night. “We’re having that right now governor. We’re running for president.”
David Frum
September 12th, 2011 at 11:48 pm
91 Comments
Mitt Romney arrived loaded for bear this evening, pointing out, for example, that Rick Perry’s Texas created jobs at barely 1/3 the rate of Anne Richards’ Texas.
On Social Security, Romney battered Rick Perry’s call to have a debate about Social Security … some time in the far, far future, in a galaxy far, far away.
Rick Perry was reduced to his now familiar babbling incoherence, promising not to take away a program he has condemned as unconstitutional. Mitt Romney caught, diced and spliced Gov. Perry in deceitful misquotation.
All in all – a good night for Romney, a bad night for Perry.
It’s difficult to see how Governor Perry walks away from this debate without any chinks in his armor. Ron Paul’s dig as a Texas resident in particular drew some blood, and even what sounded like gasps from the Tea Party crowd. However, his later ramblings about Saudi military bases may have undercut any chance of his performance carrying weight.
During the September 7th Republican Presidential debate, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas repeated an earlier assertion of his that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. Read that again: in the age of Bernie Madoff, Rick Perry called Social Security a Ponzi Scheme.
With the election a mere year and a half away, all sorts of people are making the mistake of viewing all of politics through the narrow lens of election outcomes.
Here are three examples.
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