In a nationally televised debate where most of the candidates agreed on most of the issues, Rep. Michele Bachmann's announcement that she had filed papers to run for president and Mitt Romney's news flash that the Boston Bruins were up 4-0 in the Stanley Cup Finals drew the biggest cheers Monday night.
From the economy and bailouts to Obamacare and immigration, the seven GOP hopefuls talked up free markets and bashed President Barack Obama's performance.
Bachmann and Romney dominated portions of the two-hour CNNdebate from Manchester, N.H.
Buoyed by speculation that Sarah Palin may not enter the 2012 race, Bachmann tapped into tea party enthusiasm with a mixture of fiscally and socially conservative positions.
"Obama is a one-term president," she declared to cheers.
Romney, who has built a growing lead in most of the early polls, deflected criticism of his health-care program in Massachusetts while lighting into both George W. Bush and Obama "for writing checks to the auto industry."
Though standing next to Romney on the Saint Anselm College stage, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty passed on an opportunity to sharpen his recent attacks on what he cleverly branded "Obamneycare" on Sunday.
Instead, Pawlenty -- along with former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum -- promoted market-based solutions to spur the economy and pledged to rein in the federal government.
Santorum revived talk about "trickle down" economics while Cain bragged that he was "not a politician. I'm a problem solver."
Gingrich, asked about the future of the space program, said "NASA is a case study in why bureaucracy cannot innovate. If we had put all the money that had been spent by NASA since the moon landing into the private sector, we would have stations in space and on the moon and a heavy-lift rocket."
As he did in 2008, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, stood out from the pack by taking a strong libertarian line on domestic issues, attacking Federal Reserve monetary policies and making an almost-isolationist pitch on foreign affairs.
"Politicians do the dumb things," Paul said. "It's a fallacy to think politicians are smart enough to manage the economy."
Bachmann, a three-term congresswoman from Minnesota, reiterated Paul's skepticism by touting "principle over party," and staking a claim to being the second biggest tax cutter after Paul.
The first House member to introduce legislation to repeal Obamacare, which she said will "kill 800,000 jobs," Bachmann bucked her own party by refusing to sign off on nearly $1 trillion for the controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program for banks and other businesses.
Although Republicans and Democrats have differing views of the wide open GOP field -- which may soon see the entry of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- one group felt that Monday night's debate showed a Republican Party lurching too far to the right.
Jonathan Miller, a founding leader of the national "No Labels" movement and currently Kentucky's secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet, said, "I'm afraid we all lost tonight."
"While everyone was struggling to outflank each other to the right, the great center was not represented on that stage," said Miller, who formerly was the deputy chief of staff of the U.S. Department of Energy under President Bill Clinton.
Of the seven candidates on stage Monday night, Miller said Romney has the best potential to capture centrist votes.
"Governor Romney was the kind of centrist who was electable in a state that was overwhelmingly Democratic. One of his greatest accomplishments in office was health care, which is something he's trying to run away from now," Miller said.
Ostensibly bipartisan, "No Labels" has itself been criticized as a Democratic Party front co-opting disaffected moderate Republicans.
Miller disputed that contention.
"We're equally critical of people who are pulling the Democratic Party to the left," he said, acknowledging that "some people believe Obama has done that."
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or (772) 801-5341.
