“Romney or Gingrich?”
That was the question of the night during the GOP debate, Jan. 19. Held by CNN, with John King as the moderator, the debate came before the South Carolina primary.
The original nine candidates vying for the Republican nomination has now dwindled to just four: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Former frontrunner Rick Perry dropped out of the race the morning of the Jan. 19 debate and endorsed Gingrich.
“I have come to the conclusion that there is no viable path forward for me in this 2012 campaign,” said Perry in a statement. “Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?”
This news might make things more difficult for Romney’s campaign, as it takes away options for voters who oppose him. In addition to that, new results for the Iowa caucus vote show that rather than a close win with eight votes ahead of Santorum, Santorum took the caucus with 34 more votes.
Despite Santorum’s victory, however, it was clear Romney and Gingrich are the two biggest contenders. CNN even placed the two of them behind the center podiums at the debate, leaving Paul and Santorum on the fringes.
“I don’t think he’s very electable,” said president of the IPFW College Republicans Ethan Manning on Paul. As for Santorum, “He might be electable … but he’s a little bland, as most people say.”
“It would be interesting to match up Santorum with Obama, but I don’t think that will happen,” he added.”
The College Republicans hosted a debate watch party on campus. Combating the stereotype that the youth is apathetic about politics, over a dozen students showed up to watch and discuss the Republican race.
“These debates are the best opportunity for each candidate to show why their plan is the best,” said student John Avila. “I watch the debates because it is a demonstration to the public what each candidate stands for, how passionate they are about what they believe in, and how they contrast against each other.”
The debate started out on a tense note, opening with a question about one of Gingrich’s past marriages, and whether he asked his ex-wife for an open marriage.
Gingrich responded hotly, saying, “The destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that.”
The debate crowd got to its feet and cheered for Gingrich.
“I like him even more,” said chemistry and physics education major Derek Ziegler after the remark, who came to the watch party. He said he watches the debates to ensure that he is an informed voter.
“Whether it has a place or not I don’t think really matters because it’s there anyways,” said Manning about Gingrich’s personal baggage.
With the candidate pool narrowed, the competition was evidently tougher, and the presidential hopefuls often attacked each other’s policies, experience and electability. Santorum said both Romney and Gingrich were “unelectable.”
But despite the personal arguments, the candidates agreed that their number one target was the president.
“He’s wrong, we’re right, that’s why we’re going to win,” said Romney.
Though Ziegler is a Ron Paul supporter, he said he believed either Romney or Gingrich came out the winner in the debate.
“They were able to back up their opinion in a way that was well-communicated,” he said.
However, being the perceived top two, they were given more time than the others. Avila, on the other hand, believed Paul won the debate.
“[He] spent what little time he had giving clear and concise answers on how to fix this nation’s problems … and did the best possible with such little time,” Avila said.
Gingrich took the South Carolina primary with 40.4 percent of the vote and Romney came in second. Paul, though he came in fourth, had the largest portion of the youth vote—but only 8 percent of voters under 30 participated.
