NYT editorial on the New Hampshire debate: Whose Century Is It Anyway?

[DeepModem Mom]

Whose Century Is It Anyway?
Published: January 7, 2008

The general election for president is still a ways off, but the New Hampshire primary campaign is providing a preview of the ultimate contest. So far, it’s not looking so good for the Republicans.

On Saturday night, ABC News held back-to-back debates among the candidates for each party’s nomination. The contrasts were vivid. The six Republicans, who came first, were a study in grays, hunched over their desks like the officers of some restricted men’s lodge. The only signs of life came when they all poured disdain on Mitt Romney — Iowa’s big spender and big loser — or Ron Paul, who is so far behind in the polls we wondered why they bothered. Then came the four Democrats: the woman, the African-American, the Hispanic American, the coiffed Southern lawyer. They seemed younger, livelier and clearly to be living in 21st-century America....

On domestic policy, the Republicans offered trickle-down bromides, with the exception of Mr. Paul, who wants to scrap the tax code. The others touted the power of tax cuts to boost the economy, an odd dissonance when Americans see economic woes all around them. They spoke reverently of unregulated business, when Americans know the Bush administration’s failures to regulate are at the root of the mortgage crisis that is driving the economy toward recession and are the reason they have to worry about lead in their children’s toys and poison in pet food.

The Democrats fell over each other proclaiming their opposition to continuing those tax cuts. Unlike the Republicans, who never mentioned it, the Democrats took on the mortgage crisis, saying it demonstrated the need to regulate the banks that made irresponsible loans and the investment firms that profited from them.

Except again for Mr. Paul, the Republicans tried to outbid the others’ commitment to staying the course in Iraq....The four Democrats debated ideas for ending the war, a service to American voters who overwhelmingly want it to end....

It is too soon, in our view, to call either nominating contest, much less the fall election. But in a year in which voters are fed up with Washington (even Mr. McCain said on Sunday that his base was disillusioned), the Republicans have a long way to go to grasp the mood of the electorate in this 21st-century election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/opinion/07mon1.html?hp