From his opening jab to his final roundhouse, Ron Paul pummeled Rick Santorum in the CNN debate in Arizona Wednesday night.
Newt Gingrich was content to lean back and be professorial, while Mitt Romney also bloodied Santorum, who was on the ropes most of the night.
But it was Ron Paul who did the most damage to the putative frontrunner.
Asked by CNN moderator John King in the first round why he called Santorum a fake in a commercial, Paul, who was sitting right next to Santorum, didn’t flinch.
“Because he is a fake,” Paul said, and he ridiculed Santorum for voting for No Child Left Behind and then campaigning against it.
Paul also upbraided Santorum on the contraception issue, saying that the morning after pill is a form of birth control and that “pills can’t be blamed for immorality.”
From there, Paul attacked Santorum for voting for Planned Parenthood and then campaigning against it.
Santorum answered feebly about opposing Title X funding, but few people in the audience or watching at home could tell what he was talking about. Santorum didn’t help himself when he added, “I admit I voted for things I didn’t like” but “I will defund Planned Parenthood when I’m President.”
Paul retorted: “There’s always an excuse.”
Santorum went on to say, “Even though I don’t support it, I voted for the larger bill” that included Planned Parenthood funding. The crowd greeted that response with boos.
Later, back on the subject of No Child Left Behind, Santorum left himself wide open when he said he voted for that bill also, even though “it was against the principles I believed in.” He tried to cover himself by saying he was trying to help George W. Bush: “I took one for the team,” he said.
Paul pounced on that, saying that elected officials aren’t supposed to take “an oath to the Party but an oath to the office.” The obligation, he said, is to uphold the law and the Constitution.
This line of attack undercut Santorum’s closer, where he talked about his “principles and convictions.”
Santorum also did not fare well in the discussion on earmarks, where he tried to give an elaborate explanation about the need for them but was hardly convincing.
And when Santorum assailed Romney for providing the blueprints for “Obamacare,” the former governor flipped Santorum over by pointing out that the Senator campaigned for Arlen Specter against a more conservative opponent, and Specter’s vote was crucial in the passage of Obama’s health care bill. “So don’t look at me,” Romney said. “Look in the mirror.”
Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum all tried to outdo one another in their attacks on labor unions and the President.
Gingrich had the most outrageous comments, saying: “As long as you’re America’s enemy, you’re safe” while Obama is President. Gingrich might want to fact check that one with a guy named bin Laden.
Gingrich also called Obama “the most dangerous President in American history” as far as national security goes, which is a highly inflammatory charge.
And Gingrich blurted out this whopper: “All of us are more at risk today, men and women, boys and girls, than at any time in the history of this country.”
Oh, really?
How about during the Civil War?
How about during World War II?
How about during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Ron Paul brought some much-needed contrast on foreign and military policy, denouncing the United States for waging undeclared “offensive” and “aggressive” wars and cautioning against a war on Iran.
In response to John King’s question about women in the military, Paul said:
“I not only don’t want our women to be killed. I don’t want our men to be killed.”
Santorum didn’t handle that question well, which was prompted by his unwise campaign remark that women are too “emotional” for the front lines.
“I didn’t say it was wrong” to have them in combat roles, he waffled. “I said I had concerns. I still have those concerns.”
He still thinks women are too emotional?
Someone in Santorum’s corner should have given him smelling salts.