Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

US & Int'l Papers

�

Click here for the Secret Decoder Ring to this issue!

Another Debate

Friday January 11, 2008

Click here for an Easy Print Version

From Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Last night marked the third debate among the GOP candidates in the past five nights. As last night's debate on Fox began, it was 64 degrees in Myrtle Beach. That is (including wind chill) an increase of 82 degrees from Iowa about 10 days ago.

The Fox Debate started at 9:00 PM - which is an hour later than the debate Fox sponsored in New Hampshire this past Sunday. Why? Because Bill O'Reilly is not on Fox on Sunday nights. He is on Thursday nights.

Fox already ditched O'Reilly once this week - having gone with election returns from the New Hampshire Primary election on Tuesday night when the polls closed at 8:00 PM. They were not going to run the risk of losing the revenue generated by advertisers looking to O'Reilly's 2.8 million viewers twice in the same week.

In the filing center prior to the debate, reporters were treated to a 30-foot image at the front of the room of Bill O'Reilly wrapping up his show. I commented to several that this was longer than 90% of the reporters in the room had previously watched O'Reilly - total, in their whole lives.

The runoff from the electoral storm which washed across New Hampshire Tuesday is that Gov. Mitt Romney has declared he is shifting his resources from South Carolina and Florida to make a stand in his home state of Michigan.

Sen. John McCain is contesting Michigan - a state he won in 2000 - as is Gov. Mike Huckabee. If Romney loses Michigan - to either man - his campaign will be effectively over thus making any further expenditures in SC or FL throwing good money after bad.

Rudy Giuliani's campaign has re-tooled its strategy, deciding to move resources out of Michigan and South Carolina and into Florida.

That being the case, South Carolina is now a three man race between Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Fred Thompson (for whose campaign I am a paid advisor).

In 2000, McCain came into South Carolina riding the same wave of a strong, surprise win in New Hampshire. The campaign of then-Governor George W. Bush used every technique - some of questionable judgment - to defeat McCain here, restoring Bush's forward momentum leading, ultimately, to the nomination.

The debate is now over. Thompson, judging from the congratulations I improperly received in the hotel bar afterwards, had his best performance.

SIDEBAR

"Improperly" because I didn't have anything more to do with Thompson's excellent showing last night than I had to do with any of his other debate appearances.
However, because this is not my first rodeo, I knew perfectly well that if I went to the hotel bar, people would slap me on the back and take my demurrals with a wink and a nod.
Perfect, I'm not.

END SIDEBAR

To the extent that Thompson's third place finish in Iowa and a long second look here in South Carolina is evidence of a resurgence, it began with that debate in Des Moines when Thompson refused to raise his hand to indicate whether or not he thought global warming was an important issue.

Whether the Myrtle Beach debate will ignite a second stage in his nomination launch vehicle remains to be seen. But, it is better to have been declared the winner than being described as having shown up.

Given the surprises in New Hampshire Tuesday night, we might well still have a long way to go in this process.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to stories about Giuliani and Romney in Michigan; also a Mullfoto of bad pun and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Become a
Paid Mullings Subscriber!

(To join the FREE mailing list or to unsubscribe Click Here)

Current Issue | Secret Decoder Ring | Past Issues | Email Rich | Rich Who?