Second break: Ron Paul makes great points but he's a horrible speaker; Bachmann is rocking; Newt is cutting to the chase with sure and short answers; Santorum is holding his own, as is Cain. Romney has answers looking for a question. Pawlenty is still scoring.
Third Break: whew! I'm becoming more and more impressed with Pawlenty - I think he wrote the religion question; Bachmann seems to be getting shortchanged on time to talk but she's direct and to the point when she does answer; Newt hit the 'enemies of the country' out of the park; Romney muttered and dodged, and Cain stumbled about the Muslim question. Ron Paul makes sense but has trouble saying why. Santorum didn't lose any ground.
Round Four: Santorum came on strong with two great answers on Choice/Abortion and DADT…. Pawlenty is giving great answers and seems to be well prepared; I’m starting to be afraid of Romney – his answers seemed canned; Cain is sounding less and less well rounded…. But has the job thing down pat; Ron Paul isn’t impressive late in the game. On immigration, Santorum was strong; Paul was great on borders but had trouble with the question; Cain on anchor babies – good answer, and good on existing illegals; Pawlenty GREAT on SCOTUS appointments; Newt on 20 million illegals – great answer‼!
Final round: need a global warming question for Romney...
Well it’s over – and frankly I’m really pleased with the field there tonight. My thoughts: Ron Paul has no chance; Santorum may have improved his chances; Newt had great, powerful answers but he’s digging out of a hole; Romney wasn’t very impressive; Cain got weaker as the night went on but is still strong; Pawlenty made a great impression; but for my money, Bachmann came out on top - got all her questions right and she seemed knowledgeable in many, many areas. My opinion, after this debate, is Bachmann is the only one standing with the stones to get in Obama’s face. I don't see ANY of the men doing that.
I also watched some of the CNN critique…. Gibbs plans to blame Obama’s failures on Bush so 2012 will be Obama Redeux… the CNN talking heads loved Romney, so for me that’s the final nail in his coffin – the left picked Bob Dole and John McCain for us – we cannot let them pick our candidate this time!
Good analysis. I agree with your assessment. I may just steal your way of recapping after the commercials. My notes are a jumbled mess by the end of the debates, but they do give me an overall impression for a recap. That is why I want to try your way, just recapping in smaller segments. I think you catch more that way.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I am reading today that folks are saying Romney was better than Pawlenty? Were they watching the same debate? To me it seemed like Romney phoned it in and did so on baby questions to boot.