The Republican presidential candidates debated for an hour and a half, or two hours, or something like that tonight. The only minute that anyone is going to remember is this one, in which Mitt Romney crosses the line from “debate argument” (often loud, but within generally accepted boundaries) to “I’m seriously about to lose my temper and start screaming at you.”
If you’ve been watching the post-debate coverage, you’ve already seen that moment a dozen times, and you’ll see it dozens more over the next day or so as the debate is dissected. And every time it is repeated, a few more people will have real second thoughts about Romney. I agree with Nate Silver (of 538) on this:
Mitt’s angry moment with Perry is playing real bad on repeat viewings. On the verge of losing temper. May outweigh otherwise good night.
That’s the kind of thing that can seriously damage a candidate, totally without regard to the substance of the discussion. Does anyone remember the details of what Ed Muskie was (or maybe wasn’t) crying about?
David says
that might be remembered. And it’s another bad one for Romney. He was challenged by Rick Perry over the Boston Globe’s famous report that illegal immigrants were working on the lawn of Romney’s Belmont mansion. Romney responded that he went to the company and told them that they had to stop hiring illegal immigrants because “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake, I can’t have illegals.” Not exactly the most principled stance I’ve ever heard.
Bob Neer says
There is nothing there. Perry was baiting him. He was arguing for the rules. Romney did touch the man, but other than that I can’t see anything especially memorable here.
What it does suggest, however, is that Rick Perry reads BMG. Will wonders never cease.
kbusch says
Romney’s appeal has been his tremendous steadiness. He handled Perry by being quite condescending. That comes through even if Perry, acting true to form, was being a dick.
farnkoff says
Plastic. Rehearsed. Inhuman.
If he can get angry, it shows he’s capable of caring about something enough to get angry.
David says
you have to keep your cool, even when the other guy is being a dick. For God’s sake, if Romney nearly starts shrieking while dealing with Rick Perry, how is he going to handle Ahmedinejad? You think that guy isn’t capable of exceeding Rick Perry in dickishness?
Bob Neer says
This is going nowhere.
centralmassdad says
Romney had a little bit of Mike Dukakis technocratic automaton air about him, and a little emotion doesn’t hurt. I think this is so because the incumbent against whom all of these guys hope to run has made “keeping one’s cool” into a vice rather than a virtue, particularly among GOP primary voters. I really don’t get Perry at all; the illegal nanny type issue is so 18 years ago.
And we can learn, from the last two administrations, that yelling at/being nice to/ignoring/engaging Ahmedinejad has very little impact on anything.
JimC says
Perry’s glare after Mitt’s “Rick’s had a couple of bad debates” line is the purest look of contempt I’ve seen in a debate in a long time.
Pablo says
I want my 30 seconds. That’s the rule. Anderson Cooper, make Ricky play by the rules.
farnkoff says
Now that would have been awesome. 😉
cos says
Okay, maybe this will play badly with lots of people, I don’t know. But it doesn’t seem particularly bad to me. Perry was being a dick and Romney was trying to finish what he was saying when he’d been rudely interrupted. He could’ve handled it differently, and better, but whatever. I hope this doesn’t end up mattering a lot, even though I wouldn’t be surprised if it does.
Kosta Demos says
I’m pleased that they both seem to come across as dicks.
Christopher says
Romney was annoyed that Perry interrupted him and I would be too. As for Muskie, there is a question as to whether that was tears or water dripping down his face, but I believe he was upset about the treatment he received from the Union Leader which he felt contributed to his primary loss.
David says
I hasten to point out that you, unlike Romney, are not running for president. See my comment upthread.
On Muskie, you are close, but no cigar: the alleged “crying” incident was specifically about how his wife was treated by the Union Leader, not himself – and it was before the primary, not after it. It was the coverage of that incident, specifically the possibly-erroneous claims that he was crying or otherwise highly emotional in that appearance, that led to his poor showing in the NH primary.
jconway says
A poor showing? He still won the primary, but agreed by much smaller margins than a Senator from a neighboring state would. It allowed McGovern to be the Comeback kid, and this was replayed twenty years later with Clinton. So in the long scheme of things it was a poor showing, but specific to the primary it was not. And don’t beat on Muskie, he’d have been the best candidate against Nixon and certainly would’ve carried more states.
centralmassdad says
Unless he was Mondale
petr says
Win for Herman Cain.
tudor586 says
The Mittster has been getting a pass–his flaws haven’t been getting much play, as reflected in yesterday’s Globe story about how he’s improved his game over 2008. Indian summers don’t last long.
johnd says
nor are many here happy with it regarding Romney being POTUS. I really think it is going to happen.
jconway says
The ridiculing of Romney on this site is rather parochial and is starting to remind me of the way too few (myself excluded) took the prospect of Browns’ victory particularly seriously at the time either. We want Perry and Cain to succeed precisely because Romney is the GOPs best shot at Obama and if the economy gets to be any worse he will lose. In poll after poll Obama is barely even or loses outright to a “generic republican” and Romney is as close as you can get to being a “generic republican”. He is the only smart candidate in the field, the only one who has experience campaigning before, and the only one that could bring the three pegs together. Pawlenty was my main choice because of that, but obviously the Mormonism is not a big deal this year (look at how that pastor’s remarked backfired on Perry) and Romney is far more polished. He has pivoted to the Paul wing on Afghanistan and a few other issues that will appeal to Perot style independents, while being nominally socially conservative for the mainstream Evangelicals like Land and Dobson. Wall Street will love him and abandon Obama (who in targeting their donations severely depressed the small donations that propelled him to victory in 2008 I swear when Hillary Clinton’s playbook was a loser why play by it?). This President is quickly entering Jimmy Carter territory, look at how many articles show the average voter saying “nice, smart guy, completely outgunned by Congress”. It was in the Time cover story and that narrative will only get worse. Axelrod is smart enough to turn the right against Romney now, and that is the only path they have to victory. But we must, we have to take him seriously because if this election was held today he would be President, no doubt in my mind. It would be nice if Occupy Wall Street was channeled back into the Democratic Party whose addiction to neoliberal economics and soft money is about to send it back out of power.
Obama should talk to the protesters and (soften but) use their language, he should get firmly on the side of unions in Wisconsin and Ohio (where socially conservative cops and firefighter unions are already endorsing him cause they hate Walker and Kasich) and run ON and not AWAY from the auto bailouts and really cream Romney on that. Mr. Economics Expert would have allowed three American corporations that employed over a hundred thousand people to go under? HIT HIM HARD. The time to be Mr. Nice Guy is long over, the time to change politics has passed, the only option left is kill or be killed.
Trickle up says
or at any rate appeared to. And he wept because he had been hurt (his wife had been attacked), not because he was deeply moved by transcendent patriotic fervor.
A newspaper was mean and made him cry. In politics, that is weakness.
Anger is a form of weakness too, in reality, but it plays very differently at GOP debates. “A man was mean and made him mad” is a very different thing.
SomervilleTom says
America would be better today if we had been governed in 1972 by more men and women capable of being moved to tears by outrageously dishonest political tactics. We would be a better nation if men like Mr. Nixon, Mr. Haldeman, Mr. Erlichman, and Mr. Loeb (then publisher of the Manchester Union Leader) had been swiftly swept aside as their morally bankrupt and utterly cynical ruthlessness was exposed.
We should not forget that America, in 1972, was illegally bombing Hanoi and Cambodia, led by the administration that Mr. Muskie (unsuccessfully) sought to unseat. Americans, in 1972, were being scourged by illegal FBI and Treasury Department investigations because the men so revered by Mr. Loeb had assembled an “enemies list” and secretly used the full force and power of federal agencies to pursue those “enemies”.
We should not forget that Mr. Loeb collaborated with the now-infamous Ken Clawson, then deputy director of White House communications, to publish the infamous “Canuck letter”. From that piece (emphasis mine):
We should not forget that ALL criminal prosecutions of this pervasive cancer of illegal abuse of federal authority were halted by Republican Gerald Ford’s pardon less than a month after taking office. Americans deserved the closure those prematurely halted prosecutions would have brought.
We should not forget that corrupt, morally bankrupt, and utterly selfish criminals or should-have-been-criminals have dominated the GOP for forty years (see Contragate).
Anger, occasionally accompanied by tears, is a far more healthy response to real pain — intentionally inflicted — than the stony macho chest-thumping bravado that we too often celebrate as “heroism” or, worse, “strength”.
True strength is having the moral courage and self-empowerment to know when anger is utterly appropriate and to act accordingly.
Trickle up says
I also wish macho anger were a liability, not a credential.
But then and now it’s a fact of political life.
Charley on the MTA says
Mitt’s fine in this clip. Cooper should have jumped in and made Perry shut up.
Not like we have other things to talk about. Not like they’re talking about them.
Jasiu says
If I were a betting person, I’d bet big money that when Romney appealed to Cooper for help, there was a voice in Anderson’s ear saying, “Don’t you dare stop this!” Red meat. Entertainment. Exactly what CNN wanted.
sabutai says
I don’t know how better to handle this. Stop talking? Romney nailed him with what he was doing wrong, and what personal selfish reason explained why he was doing it.
I thought Romney outpointed Perry on that one.
Ryan says
My thoughts upon viewing it:
—
Mitt Romney showed emotion? I thought he was a robot! Like Data, but programmed to try to win elections. Holy Shit! He’s actually a human being!
—
With that in mind, I think any show of emotion helps him. It will remind people that they’re not just voting for a computer that’s designed to look, think and act human — but constantly fails the uncanny valley in those endeavors. So now, anyone who would have considered him, were it not for his inner circuits, can now go back to their consideration, knowing he’s got at least some flesh and blood.