I kept score this time! This is a scoring method introduced to me by an old roommate of mine in '04, is loosely adopted from hockey's +/- stat, and is completely subjective. Ideally, (a) there should be beer involved, and (b) the score should track the amount of bullshit used in the debate, but I've waffled this time, and allowed relevance to enter the mix. The raw scorecard is here. My initial scoring tally (prior to corrections):
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John McCain: +26
- Fred Thompson: +20
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Mike Huckabee: +19
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Rudy G: +19
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Tom Tancredo: +11
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Duncan Hunter: +8
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Ron Paul: +6
- Anderson Cooper: +5
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Mitt Romney: 0
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CNN Production: -6
Further notes:
- The candidates were fish-in-a-barrel all night, and there will definitely be fallout. That sound you hear is the burble of 'conservative' propaganda tanks generating "talking points" decrying CNN as enemy and candidates as brave combatants...
- Anderson Cooper gets a hero tag for detecting (and detonating) Romney's Bible pitch, exposing Romney as a less-charming version of John Edwards. (i.e., they're both peddlers of snake oil, but Edwards' customers need the stuff)...
- Reagan this, Reagan that. Reagan is a closer match to Bush Jr. than anything else, and making claim to Reagan's legacy is going to cost the candidates in the general...oh, wait. I forgot about the Democrats. Never mind...
- There were quite a few "Wow, I'm going to get whacked for this answer" moments; it was interesting to see which candidates (McCain, Giuliani, Thompson, Paul) took their medicine, and which ones (Romney,Huckabee, Giuliani) didn't...
- Ron Paul is officially a one-note band...
- Fred Thompson undercut the entire party with the "we've all hired people..." jab (referencing Kerik, per MSNBC blog). I interpreted that comment as "Yeah, we're Republicans, we do most of the hiring in this country anyway."
- Thompson torpedoed Romney and Huckabee, but Huckabee was too wrapped up in preaching to care. Expect the Bible-thumpers to turn out in droves...
- There was not one single mention of Faith-based Initiatives during this debate, and that pisses me off...
- According to the above, I'm a John McCain fan, and I'm mostly ok with that. The "surge strategy" term is just a garbage buzzword, though. Surge is a vile-tasting soft drink, not a strategy...
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