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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDebate watchers - who won the debate?
For those of us that can't bear it, or had to miss it, who do you think won the debate and who lost?
Watching LO it seems that Santorum was the big loser and Romney did fairly well.
What do you think?
edited to add
From the 'politicalwire'
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/02/22/gop_debate_reaction.html
Tonight's Republican debate was easily one of the worst of the presidential campaign.
Mitt Romney was armed with opposition research on Rick Santorum but didn't come close to a knock out. The audience -- which was definitely slanted towards Romney -- helped cover for many clumsy mistakes. His attempts to throw red meat to conservatives exacerbated his in-authenticity. Nonetheless, Romney did not lose and at the very least held his ground.
Santorum acted as though he was still a non-contender. It's almost as if he decided in the middle of the debate to run for vice president instead. He also showed how hard it is to run for president with a U.S. Senate voting record. However, he did real damage to Romney in their heated exchange on RomneyCare.
Newt Gingrich scored many points but it's unclear how he gains against either Santorum or Romney. In the end, he wasn't much of a factor.
Ron Paul, as always, was consistent on both advancing his libertarian agenda and in helping Romney by attacking Santorum.
The real winner tonight was President Obama. After 20 debates, his potential rivals have done wonders for his re-election chances.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)elleng
(129,800 posts)Tx4obama
(36,974 posts)Obama-Biden 2012
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Sight unseen. I didn't watch either.
yourout
(7,518 posts)Stomach is a little of to begin with.
15 minutes of that and I would have been praying to the porcelain goddess.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Rmoney, Sanitarium, and the Adulterer tried to out crazy each other on how we need to invade Iran.
Then Ron Paul would call them crazy ... and then spout some other crazy nonsense.
In the other debates, the audience was cheering and screaming approval ... in this one, the audience seemed lost .... screams of approval and of contempt occurred at the same time ...
It was a mess.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,212 posts)John King asked the candidates to take a minute and speak to some misconceptions people may have about them or their campaign.
Ron Paul went on about how the narrative is that he can't win, Noot talked about the need for a Washington insider and then Rmoney launched into an unrelated stump speech.
King *tried* to rein him back in by referencing the question (again) and Rmoney looked over at him and said in this uber snotty tone, "you ask the questions you want, I'll give the answers I want".
It just SCREAMED a combination of entitlement, dictator and bullshit artist - none of which are to EVER be challenged. Audience groaned, but they did applaud him when he finally shut the fuck back up, so who knows.
I don't pretend to know how these people think.
Swede
(33,077 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Could somebody post a message here when this is official?
Mr.Turnip
(645 posts)Though I actually think Santorum did better than Romney, the Health Care/ Specter thing was the most memorable moment of the debate and Santorum one-upped Romney there, and that clip will almost certainly be played over and over in the coming days.
Gingrich actually had the best debate followed by Paul, this was among Santorum and Romney's worst debates actually.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)won that gas bag chase.
HangOnKids
(4,291 posts)These clowns are having a hard time getting out of the car. Loving it.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)He told the Republican crowd that earmarks are bad, Bad, BAD but that HIS earmarks, ones for the Olympics were better than Santorum's earmarks, so "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah". The crowd cheered. Republicans just eat up that kind of slick nonsensical double talk.
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)They all suck!
russspeakeasy
(6,539 posts)sofa king
(10,857 posts)The candidates' prospects collectively diminish the longer this nonsense continues, and it gives comedy writers the opportunity to knock off for three-martini lunches that turn into nine-martini dinners while they wait for these clowns to do their work for them.
Then they shlep in the next morning and say, "okay, Jon, what we want to do is show five minutes of random debate snippets while you stare at the camera, mouth agape." And it kills.
Heck, even an amateur can't help hitting a fish in that barrel from time to time. I was pretty pleased at a couple of my own real-time swipes, until my better half decided that actually watching the debates are not nearly as fun as watching people make fun of them tomorrow.
Come to think of it, I wonder if the Comedy Channel needs writers....