May 16, 2007 12:20 PM

M.E. Sprengelmeyer on the GOP debate

Mark_Wolf(Q) You watched and live-blogged the debate from Mitt Romney headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa. What was the mood there before and after?
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) The mood was fairly subdued once the debate began. I've covered three debates this way now: one at Democrat John Edwards' headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa; one at Republican Tom Tancredo's headquarters in Council Bluffs, Iowa; and now this one at Romney headquarters in Urbandale. Each time, the folks eat and joke around before the debate. (Romney's folks had cold pizza and Gummi worms.) But once the broadcast begins, folks stare silently into the screen. For so much of last night's debate, Romney was on the defensive over flip-flop allegations, so there weren't a whole lot of hoots and hollers. He did get a few from his people in Iowa -- especially when he took a jab at Sen. John McCain's immigration reform agenda. When McCain fired back, some ooohs went up from the Romney crowd here.

Mark_Wolf(Q) I thought Fox News Channel assembled the best debate format so far. The questions were sharp and there were some pointed follow-ups.
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) I agree. The format was far more viewer-friendly than the chaotic, fast-paced, nonsequitur-filled debates on MSNBC. My old garage band, News Hole, used to have a saying at rehearsals, when someone would try some experimental riff that just didn't work. The guitar maestro Bruce would say: "Dude, I dig what you're trying to do..." Well, that's what I say to MSNBC about its wacky format. Dudes, I dig what you're trying to do... The Fox News format worked -- and the hosts seemed eager to give newspaper reporters what they enjoy: conflict. We saw Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani have a smack-down. We saw Romney and McCain go at it. And the others, well, let's just say there were fewer "Shrinking Violets" on stage last night. (Look at the "Back roads to the White House" coverage of the last debate to see what I'm talking about. Did I mention that I have a blog? It's called "Back roads to the White House.")

Mark_Wolf(P) M.E. Sprengelmeyer writes the Back Roads to the White House blog on RockyMountainNews.com. In case you didn't get the message.
Mark_Wolf(Q) Mike Huckabee had that "John Edwards at a beauty shop" line ready and dropped it the first chance he could. Then he scored again with the quip that he wishes he were included in the "Rudy McRomney" combo. Think he got a bump last night?
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) As I was typing furiously in real time -- 4,132 words in all yesterday, but who's counting -- I said at that moment that Huckabee had scored what would likely be the biggest laugh line of the whole event. And it was. He got in a couple other zingers, too, and even some people at the Romney headquarters said (quietly) that they thought he stood out (when their favorite was excluded from consideration, of course). Still, as some analysts (whom you can find on my blog) said afterwards, it's not clear that laugh lines translate into a huge bump. It won't hurt Huckabee as he tries to get his name known. As I wrote in last week's chat, on the Republican side he is the funniest fellow to watch on the stump. Some of his material is well-practiced and he's expecting a laugh, but in person he's also quick on his feet and funny. Does America want a funny president right now? We'll see.

M.E._Sprengelmeyer(P) By the way, my blog, "Back roads to the White House," can sometimes be tough to find. Just go to www.RockyMountainNews.com and in the upper right corner search for "M.E." or "Back roads" or a whole bunch of other terms you might guess. I want them to make "Zappa" one of the search terms.

Mark_Wolf(Q) Tancredo was sitting on the fastball when he got the question about the others being "soft on immigration." He slammed McCain directly and had a great line with the "conversions on the road to Des Moines" zinger. Much improved over the first debate.
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) He uses the "road to Damascus/road to Des Moines" line everywhere he goes. He used it at the Lincoln Day dinner in Des Moines a month ago, so all his rivals heard it then, too. He uses it everywhere. But it still gets a laugh because, let's face it, every time Tancredo gets on national television, for many people it's still the first time they've ever seen his face, heard his name or heard his one-liners.

Mark_Wolf(Q) Tancredo doesn't think there's proof of global warning. Last time he said he didn't believe in evolution. But he does believe in Jack Bauer, the fictional star of 24.
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) Good one. Mark Wolf can compete with Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo in the comedy department. Tancredo made two statements last night that got applause in a Republican-leaning crowd but are more controversial in the general public. One, he said there's equal science on both the "yes" and "no" sides of the global warming question -- the question of whether global warming is real and whether it's caused by humans. Second, he got big applause in the FoxNews audience in South Carolina, when he denounced radical islam and then gave his controversial interpretation of the tenets of Islam, claiming that it's part of the religion's beliefs to attack non-believers. (As the Rocky Mountain News reported last year, Tancredo cites passages of the Koran to make the statement, but Muslims have said that's a misinterpretation of what moderate Muslims believe.) That being said, he got a huge laugh with the "Jack Bauer" line, which prompted some of us -- who don't watch a lot of television -- to fret about being pop-culture illiterate. It was the equivalent of not knowing the name "Murphy Brown" when former vice president Dan Quayle attacked her in the 1990s. Note to editors: let M.E. watch more television while he's on the clock.

Mark_Wolf(Q) How did the Romney room respond when McCain jabbed that, "I haven't changed my position because of the different offices I might be running for."
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) There were a couple dozen people floating in and out of the room, and let's just say that caught their attention. There were some audible sneers of "oooooooh." But the Romney folks, who get chased around the country by a man in a fluffy porpoise "Flipper" costume, are used to facing the old "flip-flop" claims about their man. As a side note, I should point out that "Flipper" is a smoker. At the Lincoln Day dinner in Des Moines on April 14, I gave him a light and he smoked a cigarette right under his big, porpoise head. I thought smoke would come out of the blow-hole in his back, but instead it came out of the eye holes in the front of the costume. He kept waving to passing cars the whole time he was smoking his cigarette. See, this is why the Rocky Mountain News has a reporter out here on the "Back roads to the White House." Where else would you get insightful presidential campaign details like that?

Mark_Wolf(Q) It wasn't a free-for-all but the candidates weren't quite so genteel with one another. Everyone wanted to be recognized as the "real conservative" in the room, especially Romney and John McCain. The folks at Human Events, who posit themselves as gatekeepers of true conservatism, weren't impressed by the conservativeness displayed, especially by the Big Three. Are the conservative activists you speak to in Iowa dismayed by the front-runners?
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) Human Events is Human Events. Likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers are their own breed. I meet plenty of Republicans here who still are looking for the "fourth man" -- an unquestioned conservative beyond the scary top-tier monster they call "Rudy McRomney." I've written on that extensively, and that's fueling the calls for someone else. Still, McCain, Romney and Giuliani all are trying to reassure conservatives. Giuliani made the case last night by alluding to the woman who makes those conservatives even more suspicious, Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. That -- even more than his trademark riffs on the war on terrorism -- is how Giuliani is, in the words of one analyst, playing the "fear card" in this race. It's really a question of whether one of those three -- Rudy or Mc or Romney -- can say enough reassuring things before average conservatives latch on to any mythical "fourth man."

Mark_Wolf(Q) Are there too many people on stage? Should future debates set a polling threshhold for inclusion? And what if Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich get in?
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) There have been two Republican debates so far. It's nine months from the Iowa caucuses. I can see how front-runners -- along with frazzled bloggers and reporters, and confused television viewers -- might want to winnow the debates. But this is still a democracy, and any attempts to limit who gets into these early debates will be met by protests. I think the "threshold" question -- who gets into the debates -- is one that will intensify down the road. But it's early. Some people who barely register in the polls and have little or no campaign funds wouldn't get heard otherwise. The first debate organizers that severely cut the debate field will be accused of being unfair, etc. As the Iowa caucus gets closer, those complaints will subside, so that's when I'd expect the self-appointed winnowers to star doing their magic.

M.E._Sprengelmeyer(P) These chats are fun. It lets me practice my typing skills for the live-blogging. Be sure to search RockyMountainNews.com for "M.E." to find the "Back roads to the White House" blog. It's terrific fun and I hope we're learning some things together about the wacky way that we pick the leader of the free world.

moresby(Q) I watched for about 15 minutes before the rage and disgust drove me to another channel. Are these guys Americans?
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) The candidates, yes. I believe that they are Americans -- although at least one of them launched his political career by passing out copies of his mother's Italian spaghetti sauce recipe. If you were asking about the debate hosts at Fox, I seem to remember a certain famous Briton being involved with that network.

moresby(Q) Since when is life more important than honor? By what ethical standards do we use "enhanced interrogations?"
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) That was indeed the debate last night. I'm really curious about what you think of the various answers, Moresby. Under the hypothetical questions, McCain, a Vietnam War prisoner of war, was put on the defensive for opposing use of torture. (He has clashed with the White House over that.) But others, from Giuliani to Tancredo, seemed to take the "by any means necessary" approach. But what say you? How did you see it?

moresby(Q) Or since when do we trust the intelligence of a candidate who would say that we don't torture because our troops might be tortured if captured by the enemy? What???? If the enemy is the type that tortures, they will torture. That is as ridiculous as "we must fight them there so we don't have to fight them here." They are here. They are all over the world if you mean AQ. The Iraqis are not interested in coming to U.S. to attack us.
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) Keep going. Tell us what you really think, Moresby.

moresby(Q) So, here goes. McCain says nothing about the ethics/dishonor of torture. He is pragmatic. We must not torture so we won't be tortured. How dumb is that?
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) There you go. So on the question of torture, did anyone come out the winner in your view?

Mark_Wolf(Q) So what's going on in Iowa today?
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) I plan to recover from yesterday's marathon by filing a story on one of the candidates -- watch our web site -- and by watching Moresby get his say -- all day, all night -- on the "Back roads to the White House" blog. I hope he and everyone else will go over there and leave some thoughts on everything we're doing over there.

Mark_Wolf(Q) Ron Paul served up a batting practice floater for Giuliani on 9/11. Giuliani's camp must have loved the focus on terrorism last night.
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) That played right into Giuliani's hands. In the Republican field, he's facing criticism over his "pro-choice" abortion stand, his views on guns, etc. But he's trying to trump all the suspicions among conservatives with his "America's Mayor" image and the hardest of hard lines toward the fight against terrorists. He couldn't have asked for a better foil than Ron Paul last night -- unless Noam Chomsky had been invited to the debate. (For some reason FoxNews doesn't have Noam Chomsky as a guest very often. I wonder why.)

gop_srule(Q) whats it like to be a reporter in the middle of thousands of other reporters?
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) Ah, but here's the secret. There aren't thousands of other reporters here. There are four or five local, Iowa reporters who cover all the events in this early stage in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses. (Their names are Kay, Mike, Chris, etc.) The major news outlets pop in and out of Iowa to cover the major candidates -- but even then, it's only a couple of fellows once in a while. At yesterday's John Edwards event, there were maybe a dozen people in the press corps -- and that was a big crowd. This will change every week, as the big outlets establish permanent bases here, etc. But as of right now, I'm very proud to say that the Rocky Mountain News is one of the only outlets who is in Des Moines working full-time (and, if you watch the time stamps on the "Back roads..." blog, virtually around the clock).

gop_srule(Q) so, who won?
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) (I'll impersonate one of the politicians here.) Let me be clear, my fellow Americans, when the great thinkers in American politics take the stage, be they Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, far-right wing, far-left wing, down-the-middle moderates, or even Pat Paulsen... When they get to exercise their First Amendment rights and we get to exercise our First Amendment rights (and turn the dang television on or OFF), then truly, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WIN.

moresby(Q) okay, now we are on the same text. It is more what I feel. I am shocked. I am 73 years old and amazed how quickly America became willing to accept behavior we would have never tolerated before.
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) Moresby, I can't keep up with all your questions here, so I really hope you'll keep posting comments (with elaboration) over on the "Back roads..." blog.
moresby(Q) Yes, but I can't remember the wise representatives name. He actually confirmed to a nationwide audience that, perhaps, the U.S. has caused some of the animosity that 9/11 and other attacks indicate.
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) I think you're talking about Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who clashed with Rudy Giuliani in one of the more famous clips from the debate. Giuliani demanded a retraction and Paul offered none.
moresby(Q) I loved it when he commented about the 14 permanent bases and an embassy growing to nearly the size of the Vatican. So, we are planning to build all of that and then leave?????????? Right.
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) That's the debate. One of the Democrats, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, has gone further than most in saying he wants not just a pull-out of combat troops, but a pull-out of all troops. The question of permanent bases is likely to be debated for a long, long time.

moresby(Q) Okay, I'll shut up after asking one more question. Why is there so little coverage of "Project for a New American Century?'
M.E._Sprengelmeyer(A) The themes of the "Project..." come up on the campaign trail, and I still have some brochures from a media event I attended in D.C. But maybe you need to do some citizen journalism here and tell everyone what you're talking about.

M.E._Sprengelmeyer(P) Folks, I need to go out and bother the presidential contenders a little more. But there's lots of stuff to read and react to over at "Back roads to the White House." Go there and let the rants continue. -- M.E. "Gang of One" Sprengelmeyer, signing off.