Last Night's Debate

Last night the first presidential debate since the South Carolina primary occurred. CNN points out five major things we learned from last night. 1) "A New Twist on 'Newt Romney". For a while Gingrich has proposed having a one-on-one debate with Romney and last night was a taste of what one would be like. For much of the evening Romney fired back at Gingrich. His unrelenting attacks might have something to do with the fact that Gingrich beat him in the South Carolina primary. 2) "Hitting the mute button". In the South Carolina debate the audience was very rowdy and seemed to push the four candidates to go after each other more. Because of this, before last night's debate even started the moderator asked the audience to withhold any applause to ensure that the debate was about the four candidates and what they have to say. This change to the debate's rules was surprisingly significant. This silence made it difficult for the candidates to guage their applause lines and it made it difficult to guage who won the back and forth rounds between Romney and Gingrich. 3) "Trying to shoulder into a two-man race". During last night's debate Santorum tried to remind everyone that this isn't a two-man race. He blames the media for narrowing the field. Most of the night Santorum took a backseat. He did have two attacks that were well launched but didn't seem to land effectively. When Ron Paul was asked if he thought he had a viable chance in winning the election he pointed out that a lot of his support is going to come from young adults. 4) "Practice makes perfect?". Finally, after giving many faulty answers about his tax returns, Romney gave some fluid responses. By giving answers last night, Romney hoped to defuse the issue that had created a week of bad press leading up to the South Carolina primary. 5) "All Politics is Local". A third of last night's debate was focused on issues important to Florida.