The Republican debate on CNN reminds us this is a race with no front-runner

We are five weeks from Iowa, and the Republican debate tonight showcased the absence of a front-runner in the GOP race. Compare this spectacle with the Democratic debates of the past few months, where every candidate draws fire on Hillary Clinton, hoping to finally make her slip. There was no such dynamic tonight, as there was no man to take down. Instead, fights erupted between different groups of candidates, reflecting the tensions of the campaign trail.

Mitt Romney was involved in most of these tense exchanges, but it was mostly his own doing: He got engaged in verbal duals with Giuliani (as he did right at the beginning), McCain (on waterboarding) and Huckabee (on illegal immigration). Romney still needs to raise his profile, and he also needs to prove that he is a consistent conservative. His past was brought up numerous times today, for example when Anderson Cooper asked him about a 1994 statement in which he said that he looked forward to the day gays and lesbians serve in the military. Romney is always very uncomfortable in such moments, and it showed as he got stiff and repeated a few times his dubious explanation for his change of position.

To compensate, Romney attempted to out-conservative his opponents; he often did not get the last word (McCain was clearly getting the better of him on the torture issue, partly because of the look of utter contempt on McCain's face as he expressed his "astonishment" that Romney would refuse to ban torture) but he wants to believe voters will reward him for sticking to his guns.

The exchange on immigration with Giuliani will probably be the most quoted of the night, as Romney accused Giuliani of being too soft on the issue and having let New York become a "sanctuary city." Giuliani replied by attacking Romney's own record and brought up a story that Romney had hired illegal immigrants: “I would say he had sanctuary mansion, not just sanctuary city.” But Fred Thompson used this opening to pounce on Rudy in what was a clear reference to Bernie Kirkik: "I am a little surprised that he says that we’re responsible for the people we hire, I think we’ve all had people that we have hired that, in retrospect, probably was a bad decision."

Rudy Giuliani looked weakened after that initial exchange with Romney. He seemed destabilized by the end of the back-and-forth as his responses quickened. A quick look at conservative blogs suggests they hated Giuliani's answer on whether every word of the Bible is true (for example Erick's post on Red State)-- though I would have trouble judging how that answer plays with primary voters myself. All in all, Giuliani spent much more time than he would like discussing social issues he is uncomfortable dealing with. Giuliani was also put on the defensive over the new explosive story reported by the Politico today about his trips to the Hamptons in 2001; we will surely hear more about this in coming days so I will leave it be for now.

John McCain picked fights as well, and did a good job of looking to be right up there in the top tier. He for example drew out Ron Paul on the Iraq War. He looked at his best on national security issues, and took credit for the surge that he insisted is working. He even managed to silence the public's boos on immigration and got out of that sequence alive. But he often looked too paternal, correcting his opponents, sighing; that could go well with the public if McCain is perceived as above the fray, but it also made it seem at times that McCain's time has passed.

Huckabee, as always, had many clever one-liners, though he also had to fight to defend parts of his record that opponents call liberal, especially on illegal immigration where he explained why he gave tuition breaks to illegal immigrants. Romney attacked him harshly, and this is an issue that is crucial to the Republican base; let's see if Romney picks this up on the trail in Iowa now to use immigration to deflate Huckabee's support. But a large part of the debate centered on social issues which is what Huckabee is best in, and what is opponents are most uncomfortable with -- so this allowed him to shine. After all, he needs to get almost all of the social conservative vote in Iowa if he wants to pull a win there.

As for Thompson, one moment summed up the debate for him. The video his campaign had prepared was the only one that was negative. It attacked Romney and Huckabee's past position on abortion and on taxes. (1) Notice that Thompson did not attack Giuliani, who has a ton of past statements that can be used against him. Explanation: Thompson needs the conservative votes that are going to Romney and Huckabee; he was supposed to be the conservative savior here, not them. (2) Notice that neither Huckabee nor Romney attacked Thompson in their rebuttals to his charge, basically demonstrating how small a factor Thompson has become in the race. There is no need to make him more threatening than he is by drawing him in a fight.

Update: Some post-debate controversy. First up, the gay general who asked the question about gays in the military has been revealed to be part of Hillary Clinton's steering committee, and CNN has already apologized for featuring his question, saying they were not aware of this (the man was also a Kerry supporter in 2004). We should say however that there were some boos against the general while he was speaking -- and those who were booing were not aware of the general's political affiliations, so this certainly does not account for the undignified picture of Republicans (who claim to be the party of the military) booing a retired general.

Second, Anderson Cooper is also getting some heat for asking no question about important issues like health care and choosing instead to ask question after question on things like the confederate flag or the Bible (and there were may of these, the point being that one or two would be acceptable since they do feature in GOP voters' mind, but there was just too much time devoted to them). Now CNN's political ticker has the silliest item up:

The issue of healthcare has sparked some of the most heated debate this campaign season on the Democratic front, but the Republican presidential contenders seemed to all but ignore what is considered a major priority for many voters...
Candidates often find a way to include their talking points and campaign priorities in debate answers regardless of what the question posed to them actually is. Since no question was posed to the candidates about their healthcare reform plans, they all but ignored the issue choosing instead to emphasize their stances on illegal immigration and the war in Iraq.

"Since no question was posed..."? What is this? Why did CNN ask question after question about immigration -- and none about health care if it is such an important issue to voters?! This has got to be the most ridiculous attempt to justify flawed questions (it is also just plain wrong, as Romney brought up health care and how he implemented it in Massachusetts).