Posted on 01/24/2008 8:21:07 PM PST by jdm
Florida voters got their final head-to-head look at the Republican presidential candidates tonight, and the winner of the debate was Mitt Romney. He looked presidential, poised, and factually prepared. In a debate that spent the first two-thirds with everyone doing well, Romney not only broke out on his own in the last stanza, he successfully parried some strange attacks from Tim Russert as well.
Rudy Giuliani needed a big win in this debate and didn't get it. However, he did do a fine job, showing a little more personal engagement in this event. He looked very cool and confident and probably gave the most robust answers to the questions asked. He only had one weak moment, when asked to justify his Florida strategy, but recovered quickly. Unfortunately, he had no game-changing moments, and he sorely needs one.
John McCain did a good job as well. He showed flashes of humor and charm, as well as toughness and determination. He did well on the war questions, but his repetitive pillorying of Donald Rumsfeld has gotten old, a crutch that he uses far too often. He falsely claimed that a majority of Republicans worry about global warming, which shows him to be a little out of touch with the base in a very obvious way.
Mike Huckabee didn't do badly, but he didn't do well, either. His joke about the Romney inheritance fell flat, and he was mostly a non-factor throughout the debate. At the end, his natural connection to the audience came through, but on a question that really has much less draw (religion) than the pundits credit.
The debate structure was a little strange. The candidate questions turned out to be softballs, and Tim Russert and Brian Williams appeared to lose their minds in the final segment. For some reason, they seemed obsessed with Mitt Romney, giving him what I believe was a ten-minute stretch all to himself. They basically handed him the debate in that segment.
Huck said the WMD went to ...Jordan.
No really, he did.

I thought Rudy did poorly — he sounded like a policy wonk.
Romney won hands down. Presidential, confident, honest, and itching to bury Hideous Rodent Clinton. No one else came close. Romney/Paul 2008
Huckabilly is finished. Praise the lord.
CQ has not been Romney’s camp, so for them to give the debate to Romney suggests ... well, that he really won.
Didnt see the debate though, so dunno.
As for the global warming answer from McCain - I’d throw a brick at the TV if I saw him say it, yes it IS ANOTHER REMINDER -Proamnesty-antiBushtaxcuts-proCO2caps-CFR-RINO John McCain delenda est!
Praise the Lord, indeed!
I noticed that they didn't exactly lob softballs either. It was like they were trying so hard to get him to say something they could use against him and the best they could do was pull an "I don't care about the voters" comment out of context.
I also thought McCain had a great performance and I say that as someone who could never vote for him.
Rudy was good and gave a solid performance. I find it hard to dislike him even though he is so far to the left.
Huckabee was charming at times and gave a good defense of the FAIR tax, but his little digs and sophomoric jokes were flat.
Ron Paul may be a moonbat, but I actually liked a lot of what he had to say. He should have been born 150 years ago. He would have made a great president had he run against Franklin Pierce.
Courtesy comment:
Yep John is pandering to the RINO minority.
Wake up John take your Old Timers medicine and smell the roses.
Global warming is a sham.
The Russians came out today and said that Global warming reached it’s peak in 1998 and the earth will start to cool.
Just as McCaniac was out of touch on Shamnesty he is out of touch on this and just about every other issue that my focus group of I, myself and me cares about.
McCaniac should switch parties and sell his snake oil to Hillary and Osama Obama.
Believe me - Romney won big time. I was a Fredhead looking for someone who would lead. Romney stepped up big.
Rudy is toast.
Giuliani did fine, but would be like a Mussolini. (No doubt he’d get the job done, but at what cost?)
McCain floating along with the mainstream media, he rises or falls on their whims.
Huckabee with ‘deer in the headlights look’, starting to spin into freefall.
Paul delivers his usual common sense answers, but throws it all away with running from the unstable middle east.
Debate? Obvious mainstream media attempt to keep McCain on life support.
NO in-depth discussion on illegal immigration, the biggest national issue.
We have to constantly demand discussion on illegal immigration. The President, govt, elites, media, local govt’s are all quietly installing the infrastructure to embed illegals into this country, and will seal the deal the moment we let up!
Yes, indeed. Huck is a joke.
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