THE DAILY BLADE: Too bad the Republican debate in Hanover, NH was on Bloomberg TV – the equivalent of off-off Broadway – because former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain went on as the understudy for the Anybody-But-Romney role and not only upstaged Gov. Rick Perry (TX), but pushed him to the chorus line.

As befitting his newly minted status as a first-tier candidate, Cain sat front-and-center – right between Perry and former Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) – instead of far off to one side. He also got the honor of being asked first question (“What would you do specifically to end the paralysis in Washington”). Moderator Charlie Rose asked only Cain, Romney and Perry how they would overcome gridlock in Washington – clearly, he thought that only these three candidates currently have any chance of being in the position to do so.

Cain – and his 9-9-9 tax reform plan – was the star of the show. Not only an entire segment was devoted debating the merits of the 9-9-9 plan, but he worked a mention of the plan into several answers. The other candidates almost exclusively attacked Romney or Cain instead of each other, which reinforced the perception of Cain as a leading man:  

† Rep. Ron Paul (TX) took the opportunity of being able to discuss one of his pet causes, auditing the Federal Reserve to indirectly and directly attack Cain – first, without mentioning him by name (“there are some, even at this table, who didn't think auditing the Fed was such a good idea”) and later, zeroing in on Cain’s tenure as chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank in the mid-1990s.

† Former Sen. Rick Santorum (PA) attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan directly and Romney’s 59-point economic plan by inference (“the cool thing about my plan as opposed to Herman's plans and some of the other plans out here, it'll pass tomorrow … Because industrial-state Democrats want those jobs”) and then went off-topic to attack the 9-9-9 plan a second time during a discussion on international trade (“how many people here are for a sales tax in New Hampshire? Raise your hand. [No hands went up.] There you go, Herman.”).

† Former Gov. Jon Huntsman (UT) ridiculed Cain’s tax reform plan (“I thought it was a price of a pizza when I first heard about it, Herman.”) and Romney’s contention that China is a currency manipulator (“I don't subscribe to the Don Trump school or the Mitt Romney school of international trade. I don't want to find ourselves in a trade war.”).  

† Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN) also attacked the 9-9-9 plan (“the last thing you would do is give Congress another pipeline of a revenue stream, and this gives Congress a pipeline in a sales tax … when you take the 9-9-9 plan and you turn it upside down, I think the devil's in the details”).  

Once again, the most incisive, interesting debate questions were not posed by the journalists who were moderating the proceedings (related article, second item on page). In a twist that should become a permanent feature of the debate format – perhaps even replacing the actual “debate” altogether – each candidate was permitted to ask one other candidate a direct question. In this segment, it became clear that Romney was still the guy to beat – and that Cain had become a threat (or a nuisance) to some:

† Bachmann continues to believe that Perry is the one candidate standing between her and the ABR spot because instead of going after Cain, she reminded the audience about Perry’s support of Al Gore’s presidential campaign, and claimed he financed a 50 percent spending increase by raising bond debt by 137 percent as governor. Perry’s push-back: “[T]oday, Texas has the second-lowest debt per capita in the United States.”

† Cain extolled his 9-9-9 plan as “simple, transparent, efficient, fair and neutral” and challenged Romney to “name all 59 points in your 160-page plan.” Romney went into an explanation of “the seven major pillars of those 59 points” – which made Cain’s point.

† Gingrich asked Romney why his plan has “a capital-gains tax cut for people under $200,000, which is actually lower than the Obama model” and targets “people who don't get capital gains.” Romney countered that a middle-income tax break was necessary because “middle-income Americans have been the people who have been most hurt by the Obama economy.”

† Referring to Romney’s stint at Bain Capital, Huntsman attacked him as “somebody who breaks down businesses, destroys jobs as opposed to creating jobs and opportunity,” and dissed his job creation record as governor of MA compared to his own as governor or UT (“you were number 47 … we were number one”). Romney ticked off the successful businesses Bain Capital launched (“We started Staples, we started the Sports Authority, we started Bright Horizons children centers”); he didn’t comment on his mediocre economic record in MA.

† Paul asked Cain whether he still believes he and others who want an audit of the Fed are “ignorant” and that the idea is “frivolous.” Cain insisted he was misquoted (“you got to be careful of the stuff that you get off the Internet”) and distanced  his record on the board of the Fed from current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s  (“we didn't do any of the things that this Federal Reserve is doing. I don't agree with the actions of this Federal Reserve.”)

† Perry reminded the audience that Romney’s chief economic adviser, Glenn Hubbard said "RomneyCare was ObamaCare” and that Romney’s “signature legislative achievement” has “driven the cost of small business insurance premiums up by 14 percent over the national average” in MA. Romney outlined the differences between the two healthcare coverage plans and hit back: “We have less than 1 percent of our kids … uninsured. You have a million kids uninsured in Texas.”      

† Romney avoided implicitly acknowledging either Perry or Cain as his closest rivals by throwing a question to Bachmann (“What would you do, beyond the tax policies you described, to get people back to work?”). Bachmann, who has the tiresome habit of personalizing every question, once again brought up her 28 kids (23 foster, five biological) instead of discussing her “American Jobs, Right Now” Blueprint. Personally, The Stiletto cannot relate to a woman with 28 kids, but would have liked more detail on how she plans to execute her 11-point plan.

† Santorum strafed the field (“four people on this panel that actually supported TARP … Governor Huntsman, Governor Perry, Herman Cain and Governor Romney”) but then reiterated Bachmann’s earlier point that a 9 percent national sales tax is a dangerous idea, especially given Cain’s “lack of experience” dealing with Congress. Cain said he will ask Congress not to change his formula without a 2/3 vote; the American people will resist increasing any of the three taxes; and as president he would veto any such increase. Cain will show he means to become the nominee if he takes the criticisms of this component of his plan seriously and comes up with a fool-proof way to pass his plan and protect its integrity against future increases.

Overall, Romney “won” by sounding “presidential,” though it’s impossible to believe his positions on the issues won’t change when he’s in office – or that he believes his positions won’t change.

Astonishingly, Perry still does not have a comprehensive economic plan (“You know, Mitt's had six years to be working on a plan; I've been in this for about eight weeks.”) and promised to divulge the details of his plan “over the next three days.” As this debate focused almost entirely on the economy, the time to unveil his economic plan was last night.

Consequently, Perry could only sing in the key of E (as in “energy”). His one-note answer to just about any question put to him – and make no mistake, a percentage of his “share” of the questions had been reallocated to Cain – was deregulation and development of the energy industry. Not every state is rich in oil and/or natural gas and he came off as not having a clue about how to grow the economy as a whole and create jobs in all 50 states. Any advantage Perry may have had over Romney and Cain on economic issues when he first entered the race is gone – he wasn’t in a position to critique either candidate’s plan, and was largely marginalized last night.

For his part, aside from needing to defend the national sales tax component of his 9-9-9 plan more credibly, Cain seemed cagey when he declined to give the names of the economists who helped him devise the 9-9-9 plan (“Rich Lowry out of Cleveland, Ohio. He is an economist, and he has worked in the business of wealth creation … I also have a number of other well- recognized economists that helped me to develop this 9-9-9 plan.”) and who are on his short list for the next Fed chairman (“I have two candidates waiting in the wings to take that job. … I got to keep them confidential.”). Cain defines leadership as knowing what problems to solve and surrounding yourself with people who can solve those problems, so he needs to be more forthcoming.

Cain made only one significant flub: His rather unfortunate choice of Alan Greenspan as the ideal Fed chairman (Paul, in contrast, cited Paul Volcker and called Greenspan “a disaster.”).  On the other hand, Cain got himself out of a sticky wicket over his support of the 2008 Wall Street bailout (“They were discretionary in which institutions they were going to save, rather than apply it equitably, which is what most of us thought was going to be done. The implementation of it is where they got off track.  I didn't agree with it.”).

At the end of the evening, Romney remained the leading man; Cain made the most of his opportunity in the spotlight; and Perry missed another opportunity to grab the spotlight back.