and Perry and Romney made each other look like asshats. Romney whined about being interrupted, which makes him look weak, and Perry bitched about Romney hiring a lawn service, which makes Perry look like a dolt. Cain's shown himself to be as crazy as Bachmann. I'm so glad these guys are having a debate every week or so. We get to see what a bunch of clowns they really are.

Romney appeared "Presidential" and Perry looked desperate and petty. Aside from that, it seemed like a non event.

Your remarks about Cain IMO are inaccurate, predictable, and tiring. For TER's self described "Most objective" poster, you once again seem to have lost all objectiveness where it comes to Cain, much like your histrionics about the Tea Party. I still don't think he is going to win the nomination, but neither are every other candidate but one, so why even bother with the primaries? Pri has already declared Romney the winner. Pardon me, but I think I'll let the primaries run their process before anointing anyone the winner, even if you have decided for the rest of us that there is no point to it.

was Newt Gingrich. He is clearly the strongest and most talented debater in this field and it shows with each debate.

But, being a strong debater will not be enough to lift him up in the polls.

He tried to make his fellow panelists and Anderson Cooper realize that the bickering and attacking being done on stage last night was helping no one but President Obama.

Romney did not have his best night but he still managed to remain the frontrunner.

And Cain will go through some growing pains, having never been in a position before where every word he utters at any time during a 24-hour period will be scrutinized and overly-analyzed.

He better hurry, though, and fully explain how his 9-9-9 plan works so that people can understand the message he is trying to get across.

CNN treated him like a star all day and by positioning him in the debate beside Romney. In addition, the first 15 minutes of the debate was devoted almost entirely to his 999 plan. He is the only candidate smart enough to package his economic plan in a snappy phrase that people can remember- raise your hand if you can remember even one thing about Jon Huntsman’s economic plan.

  But what Cain “won” was not any improved chance to win the GOP nomination but a chance to make some big money when this is over.

      He is not actually running for president but to become a political celebrity a la Palin and Huckabee and make easy big money on the speaking circuit and selling books. He obviously cannot win Iowa because Iowa goes to the best organization and he has no organization. He can’t win New Hampshire because those voters will not tolerate seeing their sales tax go from zero to 9%.
     
      He can’t win Nevada bc he is abolishing the mortgage interest deduction in a state with thousands of home owners barely able to meet mortgage payments as it is. Take that deduction out and you are effectively increasing their taxable income by $15,000 to $20,000 which pretty much kills any benefit in lowering their income tax rate to 9%.

      But he is going to make a lot of money and maybe get his own talk show one day.

After watching last night, I've concluded that it's pretty not of much value in revealing to the public who wants to do what, and how they would do it.  I think the media has organized these things in such a way as to simply be able to glean some one liners, and occasional sarcastic comment just so they can fill up the news segments.

How in the hell can Cain dispute criticism of his 999 in one minute?  How can any of them explain their immigration position in one minute.  And, how ridiculous that if someone mentions another by name, then they flip back and forth between the two for 30 seconds....  It's a process doomed to essentially make all of them look bad.  Newt, once again, pointed these sort of issues out and it's really sad that none of the others echoed his concerns.

I personally think the format needs to be completely changed such that they pick some topic, let's say tax reform, and each candidate is given some amount of time, let's say 15 minutes to present the high level of their plan, powerpoints and all.  After each presentation, allow a small number of questions.  Staging questions about what Perry said about Romney, what Cain said about Suzy, etc... is pointless and irrelevant in terms of who would be best for President.  Hell, we have already seen with Obama that just because someone is a smooth talker and says all the right things at a really high level doesn't mean they would be worth a shit as President.

As for Prius, you're still make a fool of yourself by spreading distortions, lies, and just plain ignorance.  Bout time to just put your posts in "time out" for a while unless you come off the obvious BS.

But Romney grab his shoulder to calm Perry down. I saw a lot of hostility from the guys last night, the only person that looked calm and presidential was Michelle Bachmann.

God help us.

Cahrlie, I know there is no God!