Debate Wrap: The Education of CNBC

Another debate is in the books. We learned little. CNBC made fools of themselves. One candidate imploded spectacularly. A couple impressed. And the rest were there too!

●Epic Loser: Rick Perry. Do you remember the “agony of defeat” guy from Wide World of Sports? Rick Perry just topped him. For the first half of the night, Perry proved he doesn’t realize that being President won’t be like being Governor of Texas where even the Democrats are solid conservatives. Then it happened. Perry proudly claimed he would eliminate three departments if elected. He named two. . . and then he froze. For about a minute, he was unable to tell us which agency he passionately wanted to eliminate, and he couldn’t think of a way to end his sentence either. He just stood there stunned like Wiley Coyote with his arm pointed at Ron Paul and two fingers stuck up in the air. Finally, he said, “Oops.” Then someone suggested “the EPA” and he heartily agreed, only to admit a moment later that wasn’t the agency and he still couldn’t think of the name of his nemesis. Rick. . . quit.

●Winner: Newt Gingrich. Newt was the big winner, just edging out Cain. Newt was on fire. He was calm and brilliant. He showed both the breadth and depth of his knowledge and he took down the CNBC hacks with devastating wit:

● He took down Maria Bartiromo and Jim Cramer with: “it’s sad the media doesn’t report accurately on how the economy works.” Both Cramer and Bartiromo had shown a lot of economic ignorance, like when Cramer demanded from each candidate: “do you really believe a company can make a profit and create jobs at the same time!!!” Uh. You pretty much have to Jim or you fail and all the jobs go away.

● Or when he blasted Maria’s ridiculous question asking the candidates to tell her in 30 seconds how they would fix health care (18% of the economy): “My colleagues have done a terrific job of answering an absurd question!!” Maria didn’t like that.

● Or when he crushed a sleazy question by John King on what Gingrich told Fannie and Freddie (King wrongly implied Gingrich was paid $300,000 by Fannie and Freddie to act as their lobbyist): “I gave them advice which they absolutely didn’t follow.”

Ultimately, Gingrich won because he gave the strongest performance. This will continue to solidify him as the alternative to Cain for conservatives, which will keep him in the race and may let him overtake Cain when Perry/Bachman/Paul and Santorum start quitting. Don’t be surprised if he draws neck and neck with Cain soon.

●Winner: Herman Cain. Everyone wanted to know how Cain would handle THE question. He was brilliant. He tossed it away by pointing out the public wants to hear about important matters and said America deserves better than character assassination. An upset Maria Bartiromo immediately tried to assassinate his character with the sleazy tactic of asking Romney if he would hire Cain given Cain’s answer. The audience booed her. This is significant because it tells us Republican primary voters despise the gotcha game the media is playing with Cain and want to move on.

Beyond that, Cain explained why his 9-9-9 plan works: (1) it eliminates $430 billion Americans waste manipulating the tax code each year, (2) it eliminates hidden taxes, and (3) it gets Washington out of the game of picking winners and losers. He argued it would make America more competitive against China: “the tax code is what sends jobs overseas.” He also shot down the argument it would result in higher rates by first questioning the stupidity of the idea that this was a unique problem to his plan (this argument can be used against any plan) and then by saying the transparency of his plan would make it harder for politicians to get away with raising rates -- an argument against the tax code tinkerers.

Cain was jovial and knowledgeable -- something which tells us he’s not affected by the harassment issue. My one criticism is he needs to speak more broadly than just his 9-9-9 plan or it will start to sound like snake oil... it can’t cure everything.

●Winner: Ron Paul. Ron Paul was excellent. He made the great point that the areas where we have problems (housing bubble, student loans, stock market bubbles, health care) are all the direct result of government intervention and government money. And when the government helps one group it often hurts another, such as when the government keeps interest rates low to help banks, it cheats the elderly who rely on interest for income. The CNBC crew were oddly stunned to hear this. Call it a teachable moment.

●Draw: Romney. On one hand, Romney’s a clear winner because he continues to come across as acceptable. But I suspect he’s actually a loser. His current strategy is like a prevent defense in football: rather than trying to win the nomination, he’s just trying to survive while the others all lose the nomination. The problem with this strategy is he’s letting others decide his fate for him. Right now, that works because people haven’t made up their minds -- so 25% support keeps him tied for the lead. But once the other 75% begin to settle on one or two candidates, 25% won’t be enough and he will have blown his chances to win people over.

This strategy also confirms the fear conservatives have that Romney has no leadership skills. You see this whenever he gets criticized because he starts to dance because he’s afraid to defend his beliefs. He had no response when CNBC pointed out that his tax plan accepts the Democratic premise that progressive taxes are good and the implicit class warfare arguments. At one point, he firmly agreed with Ron Paul about health care, only to turn to Jello moments later when he was asked if that means he no longer believes there’s a role for government to provide insurance to the uninsured.

His answer to the Cain question also demonstrates the problem. Bartiromo sleazily asked him to attack Cain (“would you hire Cain as a CEO given his answers”). A leader would have seized the moment: “I don’t know what Herm did or not, BUT I think it’s obscene the way the media.....” Romney didn’t do that. Instead, he said it wasn’t his place to comment. If he doesn’t think it’s his place to comment when an American citizen is being slandered by the media, then why would we want him as a our leader?

Last night, it struck me for the first time that this prevent defense wasn’t working anymore. Romney seemed a lot less relevant than before. So I suspect he may eventually look back on last night as the moment his candidacy started to slip away.

●Loser: Maria Bartiromo/CNBC. CNBC sells itself as a no-nonsense pro-business channel. Their claim is based on having more knowledgeable reporters and deeper analysis than others. Last night was full of nonsense “gotcha” questions, cheap shots, and whiny, abusive and shrill comments. Maria and Jim Cramer were particularly rude and proved they don’t actually understand economics.

●Loser: Michele Bachmann. Bachmann continues to talk about her tax plan, which doesn’t exist. If you ask her any question, she whines her way through all of her talking points, always in the same order, and she’s never seemed less relevant than last night.

●Loser: Rick Santorum. Rick can’t win the nomination. So presumably, he’s playing to raise his profile for fundraising purposes. But Rick is not helping himself. In the last couple debates he was simply obnoxious, talking over people and making unfair attacks. Last night, he smugly fell in love with himself. Then he declared himself an advocate of the poor by throwing the Republican Party under the bus. He didn’t understand what “picking winners and losers” means or why it’s bad. He also chastised the others for wanting to cause problems with China, after saying last time he wanted to start a trade war with them. He also promises subsidies to his favored industries while saying his plan (which also doesn’t exist) would eliminate subsidies. And yet, Mr. Inconsistent attacks the others for not being consistent in unspecified ways.

●Loser: CNBC. Finally, CNBC gets a thumbs down for not streaming this over the net.