The latest GOP debate

The debate among the Republican presidential candidates at the Reagan Library in California just ended. First, let me say that it set a personal record for me: I have never been able to watch MSNBC for almost two hours in a row before tonight. Second, let me also say that I expected a more biased set of questions than those that were put forward. Okay, to be most specific, Brian Williams seemed both fair and relatively unbiased in his questioning. His compatriot from Politico, however, asked the usual questions with the usual bias. But let's get past the quality of the questioning and talk about the answers. Here are my observations:

1) Ron Paul never ceases to amaze me. I would call him a blithering idiot, but that would be an insult to blithering idiots everywhere.

2) Newt Gingrich remains the clearest thinking candidate with the most interesting ideas. He clearly is unafraid to think outside the box.

3) Mitt Romney is prepared to deal with all sorts of issues and attacks without ever seeming to suffer from any blow directed towards him. For example, He was repeatedly hit for Massachusetts being 47th in job creation during his term as governor; yet, he effectively squelched all those attacks by pointing out that when he left office, Massachusetts had an unemployment rate of 4.7%. He also made an effective argument in support of his new economic plan. I thought that he was the clear winner of the debate.

4) Michelle Bachmann alternated between a caricature and a candidate. In her first few answers, I was wondering if she was auditioning for Saturday Night Live. As the debate wore on, she came back to being more sensible. On the whole, she did not help her candidacy in my opinion.

5) Rick Perry was the target of repeated attacks from the other candidates. For the most part, he dealt with those attacks well. I particularly liked his response to the snarky questions from our friend from Politico about the quality of education in Texas. Perry talked about the increase in results during his term as governor, the only issue that ought to be discussed. Perry seemed a bit uncertain in dealing with the climate question as well as the social security one. Even so, he did well enough for his first debate in my opinion. He will need to step up his game in the future, however.

6) Rick Santorum once again aquited himself well. Of course, since he seems to have no chance to win, it does not matter much.

7)Herman Cain came back to the clear speaking, no nonsence problem solver that was his persona in the first dabate months ago. I thought he was very successful tonight. Of course, he has the same problem as Santorum, namely: he will not win.

8)That leaves Jon Huntsman. He got a lot of play from the NBC team particularly as a foil for the frontrunners. His performance in the debate was lackluster at best. He also has no chance of winning the nomination.

On the whole, the debate was extremely interesting. It could have been even better had NBC spent more time on the key issues like jobs and the economy and less on side issues like Ron Paul's views on the constitutionality of the TSA. Hopefully, the next few debates will get further into the details of what is truly important.