Fractured GOP: Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

If you want to know how fractured the GOP is today, just compare the following analyses of last night's Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, SC from respected political pundits:

Chuck Todd, MSNBC: "Post-Debate First Take: Fred's Not Dead . . ." Todd thinks Fred Thompson did the best. But this isn't the first time pundits thought Fred was superb in a debate--they said the same thing in Iowa. Problem is whether anyone is watching. Fred probably is dead, due to poor campaigning and lack of strategy.

Jonathan Martin, Politico: "McCain Emerges Unscathed." Martin says no one touched McCain, but these other commentators beg to disagree--for example, Dean Barnett, below, who said McCain had some good and bad moments, the bad including "annoy[ing] conservatives for no apparent reason" with his discussion of global warming.

Dean Barnett, Weakly Standard: "A Big Night For Huckabee." Barnett praises Huckabee as "an exceptional politician whose package of skills is often sold short" and says his political skills were on full display in the debate.

The two candidates who seemed not to bet much out of the debate were Romney and Giuliani, but if we look hard enough we'll probably find someone reasonably neutral who thought one or the other was superb.

Is McCain the "front-runner?" Martin, above, is one of those who thinks McCain is the "front-runner"--evidently on his own say-so. National polls of Republicans show no such thing. In the Rasmussen's four-day tracking poll, McCain is on top--by two points--over Huckabee and Romney today, but Huckabee was on top yesterday.

The more interesting story in the national polls is Giuliani--having deliberately sat out Iowa and New Hampshire, and doing the same with Michigan and Florida--Giuliani has been out of the mind's eye during all this intense media glare. He's now down to 9% in the Rasmussen tracking poll. He could resurrect himself with a strong showing in Florida, but that's not going to be easy, and even then, all he does is get himself back into the race--he hardly becomes the favorite.

McCain has small leads in recent Michigan and SC polls, but will they hold up? If they do, he will be the front-runner. On the other hand, suppose Mitt wins Michigan and Thompson wins SC (highly unlikely, but within the realm of possibility)--then we have four winners in four contests. Give Rudy Florida and you start all over on Super Duper Tuesday!