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Interesting results from Luntz.

I thought Romney was a little off his game last night. Although, he looked like the one who was in CNN’s cross hairs on this round.

Maybe that’s just my view since I thought he won the two previous outings. It’s possible that Luntz’s folks didn’t have such high expectations.

To me it seemed Romney won the first 1/4 of the debate...the remaining time had no clear winner in my mind.

"I thought Romney was a little off his game last night. Although, he looked like the one who was in CNN’s cross hairs on this round.

Maybe that’s just my view since I thought he won the two previous outings. It’s possible that Luntz’s folks didn’t have such high expectations."

As a Romney supporter, I have to say I agree. He was a bit off his game last night. There were a lot of things I've heard him say elsewhere regarding a lot of these issues that I wished he had said last night, but maybe he was just having an off night. Still, I think he pulled off a pretty solid performance, all things considered. It was very obvious to me that CNN was out for his blood. That audience member who asked about the Spanish ads was a total plant since all of the other audience member questions were broad and not asked of specific candidates--only this one. Coincidence? I think not...especially since CNN screened all the questions.

I find it really interesting that Romney is the one who has mostly been on the receiving end of the "attack dog" type of questions--both in this debate and in the last one. I have my theory on this. I think that CNN, being the liberal cheerleader it is, suspects that Romney could wipe the walls with whomever is the Democratic nominee and are trying to tear him down in the primary. In Fox News's case, it's been pretty obvious that they are pushing Giuliani and that is a major reason in the desparity of the questioning between him and Romney.

What's impressive though about Romney is that he doesn't ever take the bait. He refused to go into personal attack mode with McCain, refused to denounce his Mormon faith, refused to run GWB under the bus, and refused to let Duncan Hunter define him as a Kennedy Republican. He's pretty darn skillful at defining who he is instead of letting other people define him.

I think you are right, though. People who have been following him all along realized that he could have done a lot better than he did, but people (like the ones in Luntz's focus group) are perhaps only really seeing him for the first time and couldn't help but be impressed by him.

Although, he looked like the one who was in CNN’s cross hairs on this round.

You're not kidding! Mitt seemed to receive fewer questions than the other top tier candidates and he was the only candidate to receive a hostile question chosen specifically just for him. How nice.

I guess CNN is more worried about Mitt than anyone else at this point.

Too bad for CNN since, according to Luntz, the average folks decided they liked Mitt the best anyway.

Did you notice how Blitzer cut Romney off as soon as he started giving his answer? He had to talk faster than any of the others who were allowed to ramble on (particularly McCain.) And why the repeating of the Mormon question? It’s been in every debate. Are they trying to get Romney to blow up? He never does. He keeps his cool and gives a pleasant answer every time. Blitzer seems to be trying to make Mormonism an issue. I don’t think it is except for some yahoo with no teeth living in the sticks somewhere.