The Final GOP Debate before Iowa

Tonight's debate among the GOP presidential contenders ended with no major surprises. The high spots came with (1) Romney's remark that the economy is in decline only with Obama as president but not with Romney as president; (2)Gingrich's comment about the need for the federal judiciary to be brought under control; and (3) Gingrich's comment about the insanity of the way Obama has handled the Keystone XL Pipeline. Overall, once again, I think that Romney and Gingrich came out on top. Romney was consistent in explaining his positions in a forceful and clear way. His low point was responding to attacks on his changing his views over the years. Gingrich reached higher highs than Romney, but he also seemed weakest when responding to the attacks on him in the early going.

The loser tonight may well have been Ron Paul. Paul made absolutely clear that even if there was incontrovertible proof that Iran was about to get a nuclear weapon, he would do nothing as president to stop that. He espoused a clearly isolationist foreign policy. This may prevent Paul from gaining new supporters beyond his group of true believers, and it may prevent him from reaching the top two spots in Iowa.

Michelle Bachmann also may have hurt herself in this debate. When Bachmann attacked Gingrich as not being prolife, Newt responded that he had a lifetime rating of 98.5 from prolife groups over his 20 year career in Congress. It is hard to argue with that, but Bachmann persisted. She claimed it was outrageous to say that she had gotten her facts wrong. But of course, Bachmann told us earlier in the year about how the vaccine for HPV caused mental retardation when there was no truth in that. She told the world today that Gingrich is buying support from the Tea Party when there is no support for that. She seems to have gotten stuck with making charges for which there is essentially no support. If the viewing audience understands this, Bachmann hurt herself severely.

Jon Huntsman was his usual self. He spoke at great length about the need for trust, but then his manner was such that he seemed totally smarmy and untrustworthy.

Rick Perry had a good performance for Rick Perry, but it was lackluster at best.

That leaves Santorum. Tonight, Santorum was better than usual in my opinion, and he usually performs well. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if his campaign can get any traction with the Iowa voters.

It will be interesting to see how the polls react after this debate.