GOP candidates shown shaking hands with Dem candidates as the former leave and the latter enter. Audience gives sustained applause.
GOP version of this proved candidates can and will mix it up when left to own devices but less so when moderator asks them to do so. Romney was clobbered.
Join me in the comments for play by play . . .
Use the comments (register for free if you have not already) to add to this liveblog of commentary on the tonight's debate from Manchester, New Hampshire.
We'll have a separate liveblog posted right after this one for the Democratic candidates debate that follows.
Update [2008-1-5 18:51:5 by Ross Smith]: Liveblogs of tonight's debates are in the two posts just below. Join me there.
Just three days until the pivotal primary in New Hampshire two debates on ABC tonight and one on FOX News tomorrow night may play a role in the outcome.
The double header on ABC begins with the GOP (Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Paul, Romney, Thompson) at 7 pm ET for 90 minutes followed just as quickly as they can rotate audiences by the Democrats (Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Richardson). These debates can also be seen at co-sponsor WMUR's website.
The FOX News debate, best known so far for its exclusion of Ron Paul, will air at 8pm ET Sunday night and will be replayed on FOX News at 11 pm.
Click "Read more" for a complete preview, including discussion of the participation criteria, formats, and speculation about the course the debates will take and the effect they may (or may not) have.
Update [2007-8-5 13:6:57 by Ross Smith]:It's back to the hotel then to Chicago. I'll use the drive to contemplate a big picture story. I also have lots of fun little stories, including Tommy Thompson on Iraq policy and Duncan Hunter's military obsession. For this debate I'll just say for now that the winner is DebateScoop.
Update [2007-8-5 12:4:28 by Ross Smith]: Back in the filing room now where about twenty are writing stories. There is a message from the Obama campaign in my inbox responding to this morning's debate! The Romney campaign has two messages in my e-mail, the second one already has a long list of quotes constructed to show he won.
I did get in the spin room where I got to talk in person with Huckabee, Thompson, and Hunter. I also asked a question of Lindsay Graham who is McCain's loyal soldier, and spoke with the Romney and Brownback surrogates. Rudy's people disappeared quickly. A sign holder for one of the campaigns was in my debate class just a year ago. Outside the spin room afterward, Frank Luntz was less than enthusiastic about DebateScoop and further research on how people watch debates.
Update [2007-8-5 12:4:28 by Ross Smith]: People are scurrying in all directions right after the debate. Some remain in filing room, writing their stories. Otheres off to the spin room, off for a smoke. I think I'll wander around.
It's nice and convenient to have transcripts in the inbox, but no time to use them now.
Update [2007-8-5 9:52:8 by Ross Smith]: My e-mail is receiving "fact checks" on the abortion dispute between Brownback and Romney.
Pre-debate
Ron Paul supporters and rain greeted me at Drake University this morning at 6:30. A group of forty plus Paul supporters braved wild rains, wind and thunder outside the auditorium where the debate would be held ninety minutes later.
Three lonely "Rudy" sign holders and a Fair Tax (is Gravel here, too?) bus were the only other signs of campaign life if you don't count the media trucks.
I checked out the empty spin room first, a small theater with little platforms on the stage set up for each candidate. It seems strange that the campaigns would not insist on a larger space with more room for more reporters -- credentials to the spin room are separate and harder to come by.
I asked a few reporters here what they were looking for, how they would watch the debate. The consensus is that with the Ames straw poll about on the near horizon the maneuvering of the "second tier" candidates, Brownback, Huckabee and Tommy Thompson would be their focus. Brownback in particular has been picking fights with Romney, the only front runner to be "in" the straw poll. Brownback and Huckabee have also had tiffs and Tommy Thompson has declared success (measured by shifting bars) in the straw poll necessary for his own campaign.
I will track my reactions and musings using the comments thread below. Join Tim O'Donnell and me there.
ABC kicks off the first of its two scheduled debates between the major party presidential candidates tomorrow morning with live coverage of the GOP forum from the campus of Drake University in Des Moines, IA beginning at 8:00 am CST (check local listings). The debate will be moderated by "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos and will include questions from David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register.
Although this will be the 4th such exchange between the GOP candidates (still sans Fred Thompson), ABC is hyping it as the "first Presidential Debate of the 2008 cycle." While it might be the first "network" debate (if CNN, MSNBC, and FOX aren't really networks), it is certainly NOT the first debate. To prepare for the Des Moines round, you might want to catch up by checking out some of our coverage of the three previous meetings:
New Hampshire (6-5-07)
South Carolina (5-15-07)
California (5-3-07)
The real spin on tomorrow's debate almost universally focuses on John McCain, whose campaign imploded little more than a month ago. Senior staff resignations and dismissals, flagging fundraising, unpopular positions on Iraq and immigration, and low poll numbers all point to the fact that the one-time frontrunner has his work cut out for him in Des Moines.
Some say this is McCain's last best chance to salvage his campaign with a "Hail Mary" pass. As Dan Balz notes in On the Trail, "[McCain's] performance on the stage in Des Moines this weekend will offer some important insights into his energy level, his determination and into whether having been singed by the immigration debate, he has begun to change his message."
So, if we buy the spin and aren't too wary of reductionism, what will McCain need to do to "win" this round?
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