Last night, six GOP candidates sat for individual interviews with three conservative attorneys general (from Florida, Virginia, and Oklahoma) in a “presidential forum” on Mike Huckabee’s Fox show. One person was noticeably absent: Herman Cain, who suspended his campaign yesterday. But as “one of the more substantive television events in the Republican contest so far,” per the Times, the candidates were not allowed to really pitch for Cain’s rootless supporters (though Rick Perry did ask to be given a “second look”); instead they were grilled on heavyweight policy questions.
Apart from a stuttering greeting to the panel, Romney seemed back to his poised self after a recent strained appearance on Bret Baier’s Fox News show. He easily swatted aside concerns about his Massachusetts healthcare law, saying that while the President is trying to take over 100 percent of the system, “for the 92 percent of people who already had insurance [in Massachusetts], nothing changed.” Surely music to an increasingly hardline-on-immigration GOP electorate, Romney claimed he’d vetoed in-state tuition, and fought drivers licenses, for illegal immigrants. As for the Department of Education, he feels its main role is as a counterweight to federal teachers’ unions.
