My order:
1. Newt (Fantastic. Unquestionably back in the top tier!)
2. Santorum (Solid answers!)
3. Cain (Getting better)
4. Bachmann (Good... should avoid fights w/ TPaw)
5. Romney (Fairly solid, but so desparate to be president)
6. Paul (Sometimes great, but too often crazy)
7. Pawlenty (Pack it up and go home)
8. Huntsman (Horrible, overly scripted)
that’s about what I thought....
1. Newt. (even though a flawed candidate for personal morality issues, hope he stays in race to sharpen other candidates, by far best answers of night)
2. Santorum (Great answers solid candidate through -— needs to show more command and not so frustration over media time)
3. Cain (could add some quotes/statistics related to competing for capital investment when talking about 0% capital gains rate )
4. Bachmann (stay above the fray and avoid TPaw, needs to loosen up a bit and avoid being robotic, could add some interesting quotes (i.e. Newt/Santorum) and avoid repeating self)
5. Huntsman (absolutely nothing fresh, totally boring, did nothing, pat answers)
6. Romney (Completely flawed candidate based record in Mass—pro-abortion, severely overreaching government, tone is arrogant, speaks out of two sdies of his mouth/contradicts himself, pat answers )
7. Paul — comes across as a crazy, gouchy, grandpa. Some of his ideas strike a cord w/ libertarian crowd, but he misses the boat......( i.e. one could say that we should work hard to avoid foreign entanglements, while still acknowledging the Iranian threat, would be so much better)
8. Pawlenty— (Tone is completely wrong, going after Bachmann showed he is a complete ***. He’s done.)
9. Fox News Moderators. stupid snear-ky dumb questions. Absolutely horrible. The founding fathers would be appalled at the stupid sound-bite politics. The media should promote real statesmanship and scholarship....