CNN Republican Debate

It was a rather emptier stage than we are used to in the CNN Republican Debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. No Thompson, no Giuliani...there were some big personalities absent and it brings into focus the fact that this race is starting to coalesce around one nominee, because at the end of the day there can be only one presidential candidate left on that stage, facing off against one Democrat.

Mitt Romney and John McCain don't like each other. That much is clea from how they fought each other throughout this debate. Some of it was civil, some of it was decidedly not. I'm also not one to defend Romney, but he is right on his position on timetables as opposed to what McCain says Romney's position is. It's a rather wide interpretation of Romney's quote to say that he's in favour of timetables, and I think McCain looks a little silly saying it. He should stop listening to whichever campaign aide fed him that line.

We're looking at a situation in which John McCain is emerging as the Republican front-runner. He's picking up multiple endorsements - Governor Schwarzzenager, Rudy Giuliani, Senator Lieberman and a whole host of others - but he still doesn't looks like a front-runner sitting on that stage. Huckabee and Paul certainly aren't front-runners anymore, and you can see from the way in which Huckabee was more shut out of the debate tonight than on previous occassions that he's starting to be pushed to the sidelines, and might not have long left in this race.

I'll tell you why McCain didn't seem like a front-runner - all the applause lines went to other candidates, mostly Romney, some of which were at McCain's expense. If he were the front-runner and the choice of the Republican Party for presidential candidate, why is he getting applauded *against*?

There are some serious problems in the Republican Party, I think. There's another post in that though, which harks back to one of my original posts on this blog about the Republican Identity Crisis. One month later it's time for a review of that situation.