Wednesday night’s GOP debate was a turning point for the 2012 Republican race. Pundits generally give Rick Perry or Mitt Romney the win, and Bachmann the loss, with Gingrich, Santorum, Cain, and Paul placing as irrelevant. The one tossup: Huntsman.
Some say huntsman was the most-improved, others say not enough. I actually thought he did well and distinguished himself as the only reasonable, thoughtful, adult. Which, in the crowd, means death.
WATCH:Â Republican Audience Cheers At News Rick Perry Executed 234 People
And yes, there was no talk about LGBT issues whatsoever. The real question is, “Why?”
Why did NBC/MSNBC ask no LGBT questions, considering LGBT and social issues have defined this race since it began?
Why did NBC/MSNBC ask no LGBT questions, given its audience supports and talks about LGBT issues?
Why did NBC/MSNBC ask no LGBT questions, when MSNBC’s lead anchor is a lesbian?
And why did NBC/MSNBC ask no LGBT questions when there was an LGBT demonstration outside the debate? “GetEQUAL protested outside on behalf of young people who committed suicide because they were bullied for their real or perceived sexual orientation,” writes Think Progress. “Every time a Republican candidate attacks the LGBT community, they are contributing to this bullying mentality.”
Conservative author Jonah Goldberg put it this way: “Wow MSNBC Is Dumb.”
I don’t mean that as an ideological thing. They’re professionally dumb. MSNBC gets terrible ratings. Some of Fox’s repeats beat MSNBC’s prime time fare. This debate offered the network a golden opportunity to reintroduce themselves to many viewers (including me) who’ve come to ignore them for all the obvious reasons. Instead of offering something like an interesting, balanced, panel. They went with Al Sharpton, Lawrence O’Donnell, Eugene Robinson and Ed Schultz, moderated by Rachel Maddow — with extra commentary from a seemingly drooling Chris Matthews (I particularly liked Al Sharpton sharing his insights on what turns off moderates and independents). In other words they doubled-down on their MSNBCness. Anyone who was thinking that maybe they should give the network a second chance probably turned within 5 minutes.  Liberals might respond that Fox does the same thing, except it really doesn’t. They always have at least one Democrat or liberal, particularly for something like a Democratic debate. MSNBC couldn’t even rustle up Joe Scarborough?
While I think Goldberg is way off on some of his criticism, I was disappointed in the MSNBC post-game wrap-up. Maddow was good but that’s about it.
The NBC team during the debate was excellent. Brian Williams and the questions he asked were as well. So much so that Gingrich played his “attack the moderator!” game.
Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post adds the winners were Romney, Huntsman, First 45 minutes Rick Perry, NBC/Politico, Santorum. Losers: Bachmann, Last Hour Rick Perry, Gingrich, Raise your hand questions.
After a strong start, Perry seemed to lose focus — meandering on his answer on Social Security and badly fumbling on climate change. Some of Perry’s struggles in the middle portion of the debate had to do with the fact that he was getting tough questions and having to weather a steady attack from his opponents — he joked at one point that he had become a “pinata†— but that’s what you get when you’re the frontrunner. Perry salvaged the second half of the debate with a very strong answer on the death penalty. But his uneven performance will likely keep the conversation about whether he is a clear frontrunner alive, which is not what the Perry forces wanted.
After Perry’s defining himself as the anti-science, anti-social security candidate, I agree.
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