The South Carolina GOP Debate on CNN

The debate among the GOP presidential candidates tonight on CNN was a true turning point in my opinion. I believe that Newt Gingrich may have won the South Carolina primary tonight. Gingrich has been surging in the polls after a strong debate performance at the Fox News debate earlier this week; Rick Perry left the race this morning and endorsed Gingrich; then all hell broke loose when ABC announced that it was showing an interview with Gingrich's second wife tonight on Nightline. Marianne Gingrich claims in the interview that Newt asked her for an "open marriage" and she generally condemns her ex-husband as being unfit to be president. The former Mrs. Gingrich went public just before the primary and she had the potential to end Newt's candidacy.

So what happened? CNN's John King began the debate going right to Newt and asking him to comment on what his ex-wife had to say. At that point, Newt said that the question was despicable and that King and CNN should be ashamed to ask it. Gingrich said that the story told by his ex wife was false; he also said that his campaign had offered various witnesses who knew what had happened all those years ago and who could testify that Marianne Gingrich was not correct but that ABC ignored the offer. Then Gingrich went in for the kill. Newt said that he was fed up with the media attacking the Republican candidates and trying to bring them down. He mentioned the attacks this week on Mitt Romney from the media as another example of this phenomenon (for example, look at the ABC report on Mitt Romney's perfectly legal and proper bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, somthing that ABC portrayed as some sort of scandal.) John King was clearly taken aback by Gingrich's ferocious response and tried to say that it was ABC and not CNN that had done the interview. Gingrich, however, sternly told King that CNN too had reported the story and was now opening a presidential debate with this sort of salacious scandal mongering. King backed off like a scolded puppy and the audience went crazy. It was the clearest and most effective putdown of the liberal bias of the mainstream media I have ever seen. For anyone who watched the debate, the issue of Marianne Gingrich went out the window. If anything, Newt got stronger as a result.

As the debate progressed, Gingrich had some other really good moments. My favorite was when he dealt with the issue of repealing Obamacare and the consequences for those 22 to 26 years old who are on their parents insurance. Newt properly pointed out that the reason this provision is important is that too many of these young people could not get jobs because of the economic chaos caused by Obama. The way to deal with these folks is to rev up the economy so that they can get work. Here too, the audience was strongly supportive.

Mitt Romney also had a strong performance tonight, although not as good as Gingrich's. Romney's closing statement was masterful. He was sharp throughout and only had one bad moment. His response to Kings question about how many of his tax returns would be made public was surprisingly weak. Interestingly, Gingrich released his own tax returns tonight, a move which put maximum pressure on Romney.

Senator Santorum also had a good night. He was at his best when discussing his pro-life positions. For those who vote on that issue first, Santorum must have won some votes. Unfortunately for him, there are not that many who vote first on that issue. Santorum was also quite good in attacking Romney on Romneycare and Gingrich on his past positions and his grandiosity. Both Romney and Gingrich, however, responded well to the attacks. I doubt that many voters moved towards Santorum tonight.

Congressman Paul had a steady performance. There was only one of those Ron Paul answers that leave me wondering afterwards what in the world he had just said. Paul, however, has no chance in South Carolina.

So, Gingrich won even though each candidate had a decent performance. The truth, however, is that Gingrich probably owes a great debt to CNN and John King. King's performance was second rate at best. Clearly, Wolf Blitzer did a much better job when he was moderator. King had the annoying habit of walking across the stage in front of the candidates while they were answering. It was quite distracting. King also asked some inane questions. Nevertheless, in my opinion, King will be remembered as the biased reporter who began the debate with a question about what Marianne Gingrich said in an interview which has not yet even aired on ABC. I doubt he will ever forget the experience.