Bachmann emerges as Romney’s top challenger

What happened

Mitt Romney cemented his position as front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination for president, as he and six other candidates jointly assailed President Obama’s handling of the economy in the first major debate of the 2012 primary season. Pollsters and pundits overwhelmingly named the former Massachusetts governor the winner of the nationally televised debate in New Hampshire. With a confident and steady performance, Romney argued that his experience as governor and in private business made him best qualified to revive the economy. The overall tone of the two-hour debate was surprisingly friendly, with Romney and his rivals—former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rep. Ron Paul, and Atlanta businessman Herman Cain—reserving their criticisms for the president.

Sounding surprisingly poised and self-assured, Tea Party favorite Bachmann emerged as the debate’s other big winner. She officially announced her candidacy for president during the debate, and her zingers at Obama—including a vow to make him “a one-term president”—drew consistent applause from the Republican audience. “She wasn’t flustered, she didn’t say anything silly, she had some funny lines,” said Tony Fratto, a former spokesman for George W. Bush.

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What the editorials said

After weeks of being “derided by the media” as the “Seven Dwarfs,” said Investor’s Business Daily, the GOP candidates finally got a chance to speak directly to the public on Monday. “Our response: Game on.” The contenders issued “coherent and incisive critiques” of the Obama administration and gave “crisp, thoughtful answers” to moderator John King’s questions. Though Romney and Bachmann arguably shone brighter than the others, all of these candidates have the “gravitas and stature to take on the White House’s current occupant.”

But where were the ideas? asked The New York Times. It’s easy to make facile attacks on the president’s “failure to lead,” but none of the candidates explained how they’d rescue the economy, reduce the deficit, or conduct foreign policy. All they offered were vague, anti-government generalizations. “By evening’s end, they had melted into an indistinguishable mass of privatizing, tax-cutting opponents of sharia law.”

What the columnists said

Mitt Romney may be the presumptive nominee, said Dana Milbank in The Washington Post, but it’s purely by default. He’s an incredibly stiff campaigner, with a forced, cornball sense of humor sure to make people wince (“Oh, my goodness gracious! Ha, ha, ha!”), and the party’s conservative base either doesn’t trust him or hates him outright. The Rush Limbaugh wing won’t forgive Romney for his Massachusetts health-insurance mandate, and he committed a further heresy when he recently acknowledged that climate change is real.

Pawlenty was the debate’s biggest loser, said Jonathan S. Tobin in CommentaryMagazine.com. Asked to repeat an earlier attack on Romney’s Massachusetts health-care plan as “Obamneycare,” Pawlenty displayed “an astonishing failure of either nerve or imagination,” and said he’d been criticizing Obama, not Romney. Pawlenty thus ensured that his main rival “left the debate unscathed,” and guaranteed himself a spot in this field’s “second tier.”

Michele Bachmann now takes his place as Romney’s chief challenger, said John Nichols in The Nation. The Minnesota congresswoman came across as “polished, professional, and powerful,” and hijacking the debate to announce her candidacy was a “theatrically skilled” move worthy of Ronald Reagan. Her policy prescriptions—shut down the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies, and deregulate all industry—are so far to the right, however, that she has little chance of winning a general election. If Romney is to be beaten, said John B. Judis in The New Republic, “someone formidable will have to get into the race.”

Step forward, Rick Perry, said Andrew Malcolm in the Los Angeles Times. The tough-talking governor of Texas admitted this week he was considering a run, and with his strong conservative credentials and stated aversion to “Washingtonitis,” Perry could give Romney a run for his money. “Few Republicans are overwhelmed by the current lineup.” Perry could yet be the answer to their prayers.