So the debate started an hour later than I thought so I was able to watch it:
1. Gingrich just schooled Romney in their first clash. Total Gingrich win. Romney would do better to get it into his head that the salient difference between him and Gingrich has nothing to do with which one of them is a professional politician. Romney has more recent experience of elected office and has been running for who-knows-how-long. The salient difference is that Romney has experience of the private sector and Gingrich was a beneficiary of crony capitalism.
2. But beating Romney didn’t help Gingrich because he lost the exchanges with everyone else. Bachmann just beat him down with the Newt Romney thing. This hurts Gingrich more than Romney. People already know that Romney is Romney. To the extent that that the authenticity gap between Romney and Gingrich shrinks, the rationale for the Gingrich campaign erodes. That leaves Gingrich with the whole awesome invincible debater rationale. But he doesn’t look like an awesome invincible debater when he is getting beat up by Bachmann.
3. I though Santorum’s more-in-sorrow-than-anger shots at Gingrich were even more effective for people who were watching the debate, but they are unlikely to make the news clips that will shape impressions for those who didn’t watch the debate.
4. I liked Perry focusing his shots on Romney. He clearly remembers the beatdowns from the earlier debates and wasn’t going to pass up a shot.
5. The $10,000 bet thing is going to hurt Romney nationally.
6. I felt bad for Gingrich during the round about infidelity. I’m not aware of any recent (as in from the last ten years) reckless sexual behavior. We don’t know the guy he has turned into when he is at home with his wife. We don’t know what kind of near-elderly father and grandfather he is. We have a much better idea of Gingrich the Freddie Mac shill who very recently lied about his role with the company.
7. Romney’s answers on Romneycare are still evasive and dishonest.
8. Where Gingrich said that if Congress can compel you to purchase health insurance, they can compel you to do anything is begging to be made into a spot using Gingrich’s own words to attack his support for a federal health insurance purchase mandate.
9. Losers: Newt Romney.
10. Winners: Bachmann, Santorum, Paul, and to a much lesser degree Perry.
11. Look for Gingrich support to start flaking off to Bachmann, Paul and Santorum in the next couple of weeks.
12. This is so anybody’s ballgame. I wouldn’t be shocked if top three in Iowa ends up some combination of Paul, Santorum, Bachmann.
13. The FOX News debate is gonna be big. Then again, all the debates have been big. There are still some points to be scored against Gingrich on Freddie Mac and any time he is answering attacks from more “consistent conservatives” and he isn’t dominating the room he is losing ground.
14. Going into the debate, Romney was in a position that Romney won as long as Gingrich didn’t finish first in Iowa since it wasn’t like Ron Paul was going to win New Hampshire. Now I can see Romney bleeding New Hampshire support on his left to Huntsman (who wasn’t there for some reason) and support on his right to a less ideologically and personally compromised conservative-authenticity not-Newt Romney on his right.
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