So who will be more annoying tonight, CNN or the Mitt News Network formerly known as Fox?

Rick is doing fine in this debate. Anyone who knows much of how DC operates can tell that he’s as flexible as necessary without compromise on principle.

Deborah Leigh guesting here. Stacy, I was proud to wear combat boots as did my mother. Ron Paul couldn’t fill my mother’s boots, combat or cowgirl.

Newt won. 

 He damn sure didn’t look flexible. It’s not that his answers were bad, on average, its that even when he gave good answers he looked and acted like an old Timex that has been wound waaaaaay too tight.

 Ad hominem attacks against a guy that legitimately cares about your life and the life of your mother.   Swing and a miss, kiddo…

Man … that was awful. I’ve tried to display some equanimity across most of these debates, but the foreign policy part of this one was just so over the top that it spiked my blood pressure by about 50 points.

On horserace grounds, I think Newt probably did win, but it wasn’t a juggernaut-style “pyramid of my opponents’ skulls” win.  He mostly just got some good lines in while Santorum and Romney tried to maul each other.

Santorum had a few bad moments — on Title X and earmarks, mostly. Of the three with a shot at the nomination, he has the most to lose on any appearance of hypocrisy. But he also kicked a considerable amount of sand in Romney’s face on the earmark thing.

I’d say it was a wash, at worst, for Santorum.

Newt did well enough to be back in the game, at least a little. Whether he can build on that to get back on TOP of the game, who knows?

Paul’s got his chosen cross to bear, and continues to bear it.

Romney was the one who really needed to stomp the others’ asses tonight, and he never managed to get on a roll and do that.

First time under the spotlight — he did ok (doing really well would have been better, but ok is better than imploding).  He made a good point in  his defense of supporting Specter (which is a hard sell, but it made sense and in light of the present situation of SCOTUS was perhaps a very wise thing to do). NCLB was a stumble imho — he has to start pivoting the social issues to other things, like the economy, and start making more foreign policy comments (he’s got strengths there that even he doesn’t realize).

Gingrich did well (too bad for him, he had to detour like he did after SC); Paul had some good stuff until he got to foreign policy.Romney needed to do better, and he didn’t. Romneycare is going to kill him, among other things (and those are starting to show up more and more).
Guy isn’t giving off a winning vibe at all anymore.

Newt did okay…but Rick Perry’s best debate performance was just before he dropped out.  And this was hardly Newt’s best performance.  

I watched the debate on the inflate-o-tron outside the Mesa Art Center and I recall Santorum saying that he got title 20 funding for abstinence instruction added to the appropriations bill.  How is that not the act of a big-spender?

 I agree . . . what color is the moon tonight?

The consensus of the conservative sites seems to be that it was a bad night for Santorum.

It seemed to me he was more on the defensive – looked to be the more comfortable one most of the night.  The thing about the VP deal with Ron Paul came off as a bit paranoid, but maybe he gets that from his supporters?

Yes.
Exhibit a the similar ads against newt when he was up in the polls.
Exhibit b the similar ads against Santorum whenever he looked threatening.
Exhibit c Paul stays away from CPAC and does not bus in hundreds of supporters to win the straw poll, but Mitt does.
Exhibit d Mitt and Paul pull out of March 1st debate, thus depriving Newt and Rick of a platform where they have been doing well lately.
Unholy alliance between ‘wrinkles’ and ‘satan’ anyone??
Ron Paul cannot win.
Mittens cannot win unless the vote is split.
Sec Treasury post for sale???

Romney had a decent night, but in my view that’s with a low bar for the most part because I personally expect so little from him.

Newt was effective in limited opportunities.

Santorum was disappointing for me. I have high expectations for him.  He had gotten better as the season has gone on.  This is his first major hiccup and I will be looking for him to learn from it and continue to improve.  He needs to focus on being comfortable with the spotlight and heat that comes from being the lead dog and not get thrown off his game quite so easily as he did last night.  I will say the 2nd hour was much better than the 1st for him. 

None of these guys has handled “frontrunner” status coming into the debate very well.  Interestingly we want people to be genuine and unscripted but this is why they typically get wooden in the spotlight, the risk of going into the ditch is too real.

So if less Newt is better, would we have to paint over the WH windows?

A Paulie demonstrates their reading comprehension…

The reason Santorum can recover is because, despite the large audience of a debate, he’s still best at connecting with the voters at the retail level.  With that focus on just the 2 states coming up he can put this performance behind him with at minimum, a split.  Sweeping 2, albeit with potentially longer odds to do so, would effectively remove last night from the conversation.  I’m anxious to see what he does with this opportunity.

UP TO THE VOTERS?!  WHAT KIND OF HIPPIE COMMIE GAHDAM UNAMERICAN CRAP IS THAT?!

Good points.