The winners tonight were Guiliani, Thompson, and maybe Huckabee. Big loser was Romney who was on the defensive the whole night. Possible also loser was McCain who seemed negative all night. Ron Paul made himself look more reasonable here than in any past debate I saw, as well, but I doubt he gained any converts.
Oh, and ABC may have dislocated their collective shoulders by patting themselves on the back so much for getting all the candidates on the stage at the same time. Sometimes it is okay to let something speak for itself.
I think both McCain and Romney were losers. Romney because he had to be on defense the whole time and McCain because he did hit Romney with personal attacks and wasn't able to play them off with some humor like he normally does. I think Thompson and Huckabee were the winners. For the first time I could see why so many people like Thompson. I don't think he would be a good President, but I can see why some do. And Huckabee wasn't hit once during the night with anything that could derail his campaign. He basically stepped aside and let the McCain and Romney try to get at each other.
YanıtlaSilI agree that Thompson and Guilliani looked best tonight. Huckabee didn't make himself look bad, but he didn't do anything to really make himself look good.
YanıtlaSilI think that McCain was the worst of the losers tonight, because several times it looked like he was just trying to smear Romney. Romney looked bad because he was always defending himself, but I think that he did well in defending himself. I do think that the other candidates did a good job of making Romney look like a flip flopper - which was true in some cases, but not so much in others.
Ultimately, I think that Rudy was the biggest winner of the night. I think that a lot of people have written off Thompson, but are still curious about Rudy. Plus with Rudy ramping up his campaign in bigger delegate states (I've been contacted 3 times in the last week) his showing here makes him still seem relevant to the race. Not only that, but he managed to stay away from those things that hamper him - primarily social issues - and stick to the things that he's strong at - primarily national defense. He also made his immigration policy in NY seem reasonable (whether or not it was is irrelevant here). And with McCain doing badly and Rudy doing well he could sway some of the right leaning independents to vote for him rather than McCain. He won't win NH, but he could have a good showing and that would bolster his campain.