The Great Chris Cillizza Wants to Know Why Mr. Romney’s Foes Have Not Attacked Him Strongly in the Debates

Here’s the Short Answer – Some Don’t Care and Some Want Jobs in a Romney Administration

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, about the best overall political commentator in the nation has his regular “winners and losers” column following the two debates that led up to the New Hampshire primary.  Mr. Cillizza, as he always does, declares Mr. Romney a winner.  (Note to Obama Team:  Are you prepared for Mitt? No, you’re not, are you.  Too arrogant to be prepared?)

But Mr. Cillizza is puzzled by something.  Despite all the bombastic rhetoric off site, the opponents of Mr. Romney seem to treat him very kindly in the debates, relatively speaking of course.

The former Massachusetts governor glided to a victory in Saturday’s debate as none of his rivals seemed willing to challenge him in any sustained way. (Why not? We have no idea.)

Well the answer depends upon the candidate.  Here is the reason candidate by candidate

1. Ron Paul:  He is not really interested in Mr. Romney or anybody else, except maybe his son Rand whom he would like to see succeed him in forwarding his cause as a candidate in 2016 or more likely 2020.  Mr. Paul just wants a stage on which to express his out-of-this-world views, and will stay on the stage until the stage manager pulls the plug.

2. Rick Santorum:  Mr. Santorum is angling for a cabinet position in a Romney administration.  Ideally Mr. Santorum would want to be Secretary of Religion,  but since that position does not yet exist (it may be coming) Mr. Santorum would likely settle for Health and Human Services where he could implement policies to deny health and human services to anyone who doesn’t lead their life like Mr. Santorum wants them to lead their life.

3. Rick Perry:  Mr. Perry is on his way back to Texas, and he  knows this.  He will soon collect the Fred Thompson award and be gone.   He will want a President Romney to help him with a campaign in Texas next time, and to shower federal gifts on Texas so that Mr. Perry can claim that he alone made Texas a great economic power with no help from the Federal government.

4. Jon Huntsman:  He is also looking for a job in a Romney cabinet, Secretary of State would likely be his goal.  He wants to criticize Mitt just enough to maintain the image of a viable candidate (which he will soon not be) but not alienate Mr. Romney so much that he cannot appoint Mr. Huntsman to the State Department job.

5. Newt Gingrich:  He was never ever really in this for the Presidency, it was all about promoting Newt and Newt’s business empire.  Once there was a glimmer (that’s all there was) of a possibility of being the nominee Mr. Gingrich got all serious about it, but now he realizes that it just will not happen.  So Mr. Gingrich doesn’t really care about attacking Mitt, he just cares about positioning himself to go back to Fox News, go back to selling influence, and go back to getting companies to pay him $60,000 an hour for advice as a historian.  The rest of us just want him to go.

So there it is, the answer to Mr. Cillizza’s question.  Makes sense, doesn’t it.