Pros and Cons

Two hours is a long time—most of the other debates have been 90 minutes.  Lots of territory covered.

By now, to be honest, we didn’t learn much new.  We’ve pretty much tapped this format out.  Everybody pretty much performed as expected.  Gingrich defended himself exactly as you would expect, Romney was steady as he has been.

Ron Paul seemed much more irrational than we’ve seen in the past.  Bachmann actually seemed to be more aggressive and forceful, especially versus Gingrich.

As I stated before, the debate was actually surprisingly more civil than expected.  Other than when forced by the questioning, they didn’t attack each other, but directed most of their attacks towards Obama.

Winner:  probablyRomney.  He had a good performance, and did well fielding the tough questions on his record.

Loser: definitely Ron Paul.  With his foreign policy answers, particularly with regards to Iran, he lost the vote of everyone except his rabid supporters, and I suspect he may have lost a few of those as well.  Nobody wants a nuclear Iran.

Gingrich probably solidified some of his support, but didn’t gain a whole lot.  As the front-runner, though, all he had to do was play defense, and I think he did that well.

Bachmann probably didn’t gain much, but probably didn’t lose anything.  She did well, but I don’t think she made any headway.

Santorum didn’t have the chance to do much, so he didn’t.

Rick Perry actually did very well, so he might have gained a bit.  But not enough to make a difference in the long run.

The real loser, though, was Obama.  Not that any Obama supporters were really watching this, but Obama got bruised pretty bad by all of the candidates.  This debate was a good rehearsal for the eventual candidate, looking forward to the general election debates.

Gingrich better get this one right, or he may lose my vote.  Not that it’s a single-issue litmus test, but it may push me over the edge.

Again, Gingrich defends himself by stating the Bachmann doesn’t have her facts right.  That defense is getting awfully old.

Principle or political expedience?

His answers:

Gay rights: he opposes discrimination, but he does not favor gay marriage.

Abortion:  he changed his stand.

Guns:  he has not changed his stand as being pro-gun.

Santorum is challenging Romney on his record on gay marriage, which is great.  I want Romney to address these issues, to make us comfortable that he is conservative, not moderate.

Why do I get the feeling that he’s been looking for an opportunity the whole night to throw that factoid in there.  And, I wonder how relevant it is.

The candidates in this debate, almost uniformly, have attacked Obama, rather than attacking each other.  This is quite a change from the last several debates.  They are all practicing for the general election campaign.