Winners and losers (+ brief summary):
(1/2) Paul: The way Paul was handled by the moderators was kind of funny. He had two questions near the very beginning (he went into the first strong but was caught in a trap and flubbed it, and then he did so-so on the second), and then suddenly gets hit with a curveball on foreign policy. Suddenly he isn't being ignored at all, and has to duke it out with Pawlenty AND Bachmann AND Santorum! Santorum in particular seemed really eager to position himself as the Pawlenty to Paul's Bachmann, taking every cheap shot he could, or maybe 08's Giuliani to 08's Paul. Yet Paul pulled himself together and did just great from that point on, schooling Santorum especially about foreign policy. It is clear he is getting a niche of anti-war voters around him before it becomes popular with the rest, since while the Republicans are still mostly pro-war, the vast majority of Americans (about 70% or so I think) are against it, so he might gain big from this. He didn't do too badly on the debt ceiling questions either.
(1/2) Gingrich: He managed to avoid brawling and looking like a moron, and made some decent points that were crammed in from the side. Fighting the moderator wasn't a good idea, but I would say he still did great overall. If he had an actual campaign apparatus I would think he might start to improve from here.
(3) Cain: He didn't get into a brawl (see above), and sounded kind of reasonable when talking. On the other hand, he seemed to be entirely divorced from the actual debate, and it sounded funny when he started talking about how much he was learning on the job.
(4) Bachmann: She could have done better, but she fell for a trap and spent most of the debate fighting Pawlenty, which is kind of stupid seeing as how she is so far ahead of him anyway and she only needed to make a couple of brief attacks. Instead of being subtler or more clever, she opened up a bloody missile barrage on Pawlenty and decided that, instead of making herself look good like she did last time, she was going to engage in some ship-to-ship combat with Pawlenty. She come out looking better than he did, but really, both will see their straw poll numbers suffer from this, and the only beneficiaries from this suicide bombing would be Ron Paul and Rick Perry.
(5) Santorum: I personally despise his views and I suspect a very large portion of the electorate (including most Republicans) agrees, but his sudden attempt to steal the show with fights against Ron Paul was actually pretty clever. Sure, he came off as the loser every time (except the one time where Paul didn't get to counterattack, on that monetary policy issue), but I suspect the people he is aiming to attract already disagree with Paul strongly anyway and will be drawn to him. The nutty big government social conservatives and the war hungry neo conservatives are probably loving him right now, and that could, if nothing else, boost his standings a bit. Oh, don't get me wrong, it would be a miracle if that tiny group of supporters broke 12%, and if he went against Obama he would probably lose Texas and West Virginia, but he will at least be able to brag about his "strong performance" and maybe position himself for a VP position.
(6) Huntsman: He didn't do a good job. He came off as a slightly more transparent, more obviously "moderate", and more dishonest version of Romney (did you see his response to the talk about his company outsourcing?). However, he beat Romney in that, if nothing else, people might know who he is now. He might at least be well known and get SOME support rather than become another Karger and lose with barely 1% of the vote.
(7) Romney: Okay, he avoided the fighting and hid in the corner, but despite what those analysts think that wasn't something that improved his image. Seriously, there is a whole list of problems with Romney here. His answers were incredibly shallow and weak, his rhetoric was lacking, he didn't make any impression except as a "politician", which is not an impression he wants if he wants to win in the current climate. That isn't the tip of the iceberg. He was pressed by Pawlenty once, sputtered a bit as though confused that the dog bit the master, and
turned red as a tomato and remained this red for the course of the entire debate. Seriously, I can't make this up. He was practically glowing with what I can only describe as either a bad spray on tan or a nasty sunburn midway through the debate. He wasn't as slick as last time, and in his current position I can't say this bodes well for him.
(
T-Paw: Yeah, he screwed the pooch. I know, I (and many others) wanted him to grow some balls and attack Romney rather than pull back in shame, but he didn't need to be a belligerent moron, either. I mean, he took small shots at Romney and Paul, and he did so about the way he should have done, strong enough to leave a mark but not so strong as to drag you into a debate-long argument. However, he screwed the pooch by pointlessly getting into a slugfest with Bachmann and refusing to let it go. I don't see how he can recover from this.
Other notes:
Those commentators between segments were real funny. I am a Paul fan and admit to a bit of bias, and the way they treated him was just hilarious. I mean, it wasn't "Do you believe in aliens" and "Are you electable" silliness, but it was kind of like he was a ghost on the debate floor. Most of the time, they didn't acknowledge his existence. There was one time where denying his existence is impossible without looking stupid (the Paul v Santorum slugfest), however. The guy in "charge" mentions his name while the others are all like "These guys aren't talking real policy at all, they aren't serious, blah blah blah", and then the two guys start with "Well, he IS talking, but dammit he wants to negotiate with Iran and that's a BAD idea so he doesn't count!" and start agreeing with each other like they were explicitly put there to attack him. That hot chick in the red dress looks all angry, like "How dare you say that name! He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named can detect when his name is uttered and will eat your soul if you mention him!". Seriously, I don't think she said the words "Ron" and "Paul" together once during the entire debate, even when the guys were busy ranting about him. Then later on they are talking about how none of the candidates inspire supporters, and the "leader" says "Well, Ron Paul does" and the two guys (the girl is still refusing to accept his existence) go "Oh, well yeah, there IS Ron Paul, but he doesn't count".
Also, a lot of the debate could be summed up with an ad libs sheet. Seriously, tell me this doesn't more or less cover a lot of the debate:
Excuse me, I, (INSERT NAME HERE), have a roxxorz voting record whereas (INSERT NAME HERE) has a suxxorz voting record.
followed by
Well, I think (INSERT NAME HERE) is denying that his voting record suxxorz and mine roxxorz.
