Mike Huckabee Wows Crowds at CNN YouTube Republican Debate

GOP Candidates Take Their Turn Taking Online Questions

When looking at the results of the CNN/YouTube Republican debate last night in order to tell who won the war of words on issues like abortion and immigration depends on which audience a particular candidate was playing for. The quibble between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani seemed to be about trying to out maneuver one another as to who was tougher on illegal immigration in order to pick the GOP nomination.

The argument over who employed an illegal immigrant and who harbored illegal immigrants was a clear play to those who are worried about illegal immigrants committing crimes and receiving special privileges. While answers that Senator John McCain and Mike Huckabee gave as far as comprehensive reform and educational opportunities respectively are meant to appeal to a broader general election audience. On the issue of abortion Rudy Giuliani seemed to be purposely taking the center on this one by saying he would like to see the end of partial birth abortion access while not pledging to sign a bill that would ban all abortions. So on that answer Rudy was the one playing to the national audience.

Fred Thompson's YouTube ad that was aired during the debate was the most combative of the night. With it he questioned Governor Romney's credentials as a pro-life conservative by showing debate footage from 1994 where Romney expressed support for Roe V. Wade as he debated Ted Kennedy for the United States Senate. He also within the same advertisement questioned Mike Huckabee's credentials as a tax cutting conservative by showing footage of the former Governor not being opposed to surtax or a sales tax. I thought it was a very effective ad. The only question is whether or not GOP caucus/primary voters find Governor Romney's conversion on right to life issues to be genuine and whether they will dig deep enough to take issue with Huckabee's fiscal record in Arkansas. Other then that it seemed Senator Thompson did not have much pep to his step.