Get A Map
Terrain’s altered. GOP debate, NYT:
Fred D. Thompson tried to salvage his faltering presidential campaign at a debate Thursday night with a barrage of sharp attacks on the “liberal” policies of Mike Huckabee, the fellow Southerner whom he clearly sees as a rival in the South Carolina primary.
The performance by Mr. Thompson, which including several pointed one-liners, capped a debate that showed the altered terrain of the Republican field as it moved beyond contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Mitt Romney took on Senator John McCain, the victor in New Hampshire, over economic issues in an effort to sway voters in Michigan before its primary on Tuesday. Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Thompson tussled over South Carolina voters. And Rudolph W. Giuliani took a muted swipe at Mr. McCain in an effort to win over security-minded voters before the Jan. 29 Florida primary.
But it was Mr. Thompson’s performance, in which he shook off the laid-back style that has defined his candidacy, that provided some of the liveliest moments of the debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C..
“This is a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and its future,” said Mr. Thompson, who has staked his run on a strong showing in South Carolina. The primary there is Jan. 19.
“On the one hand,” he said, “you have the Reagan revolution, you have the Reagan coalition of limited government and strong national security. And the other hand, you have the direction that Governor Huckabee would take us in. He would be a Christian leader, but he would also bring about liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies.”
Mr. Thompson then lit into Mr. Huckabee, the former Baptist preacher and Arkansas governor who won the Iowa caucus, for wanting to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, for supporting what he called “taxpayer-funded programs for illegals” and for wanting to sign a law restricting smoking.
“That’s not the model of the Reagan coalition, that’s the model of the Democratic Party,” he said.
Mr. Huckabee, for his part, responded with trademark humor. “The Air Force has a saying that says if you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target,” he said. “I’m catching the flak; I must be over the target.”
Yeah, if you plan on dropping your bombs on the GOP.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 5:29 am Comments (1) on Friday, January 11, 2008
One Response to “Get A Map”
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January 11th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
When I read the NYTs account I was gobbsmacked. And they live blogged the debate.
They must have read my T shirt from ‘78.
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