Stupid thing decided that I tweeted too many times tonight. Anyway, short version of my take on the debate: Romney won, Perry lost, Cain was at his best (which is pretty damn good). Romney will continue to get establishment support, Perry needs to get better at debating if he wants to win. If Perry was a better debater this nomination fight would be over; if Romney was anybody else besides… Romney it might be over the other way.
And those are the only two candidates who matter at this point. Everyone else has faded and/or never had a shot to begin with.
Moe Lane
I’m hoping that Sarah Palin has been waiting for the lesser candidates to be winnowed out and that she will declare her candidacy once a frontrunner emerges.
I sincerely doubt that she is running, Cynthia.
I think Perry imploded. I don’t see how he gets better after the immigration question. I have this sinking feeling that we may be stuck with Mitt. Second election in a row holding nose…. GOD.
Cynthia – Speculating about Gov. Palin is useless. She has been stringing everybody along for a very long time. And I am not mighty big for that sort of games and attitude. I don’t think she is getting in at all.
antisocial: the immigration stuff doesn’t worry me. What worries me is the general fade after the hour point. Perry can work a crowd and give a speech, but he’s not good at debating, and it shows.
I’m thinking we definitely need to maximize our gains in the Senate and House to ensure we get the most out of whichever R gets the nod (since the second coming of Reagan seems unlikely).
What a pity we use these stupid gong shows called “debates” to pick candidates.
@Rob: I agree. I’ll still support Perry over Romney any day of the week.
Perry just lost me. That “you must be a heartless monster if you don’t want to love on teh poor illegals” stuff is not only tone-deaf on immigration, it shows that Perry can’t even hold a dialogue on the topic: if you disagree with him, you’re a bigot. This falls in line with his Gardisil stance, where if you don’t agree with him you must be in favor of dead little girls. How is he gonna act as President, when he runs ito the fact that his own party disagrees with his policies?
DaveP: speaking practically, I think that you may want to rhetorically unlink immigration and Gardasil. The most visible thing that the latter controversy has done is to destroy Michele Bachmann as a credible national candidate; and I would have said that it did for Rick Santorum, too, except that he wasn’t really one to begin with.