Visual source: Newseum
Chris Cillizza looks at winners and losers: winners were Romney (he didn't lose), Perry's aggressiveness and Anderson Cooper. Losers were Herman Cain (who has no answers), Perry's aggressiveness ("Measured aggression in a political debate is a good thing. Unchecked aggression isn’t") and the other also-rans, who really don't belong on the same stage any more. The hesitancy to say so for too many pundits should not obscure how badly the others are doing.
TPM isn't pulling punches:
Hit the panic button!
Everyone not named Mitt Romney needs to get their name back into the conversation fast or they risk falling out of the race. As a result, there was a palpable sense of panic among the second-tier candidates as they ignored moderator Anderson Cooper and shouted attacks over each other at a dizzying pace.
As for Anderson Cooper, Jonathan Bernstein sez:
Well, it was the feistiest debate — Rick Perry even stayed awake for the whole thing, which was a nice change — and we had the welcome (at least for entertainment purposes) return of the Crazy GOP Audience thing, this time cheering for the idea that the unemployed were the ones to blame for unemployment. The debate to me had a clear loser… Anderson Cooper. I’ll get to that later...
But Anderson Cooper, the CNN moderator, has no excuse: his claim that 47% of American pay no taxes was inexcusable. Just terrible. The correct stat is that 47% of US households don’t pay federal income taxes, which is very different. It’s bad when politicians get basic factual stuff wrong; it’s terrible when CNN does
Dan Balz:
Debates have shaped the Republican race, perhaps as never before in a nomination battle. But after all the debates, the race now stands almost exactly where it was when these forums began, with the party’s rank and file trying to decide whether it can learn to love former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney while wondering if a more appealing Mr. or Ms. Right will appear to challenge him...
Those shifts illustrate a hesitancy on the part of conservative Republicans, particularly those in the tea party movement, to embrace Romney as well as a lack of consensus on whether there is a better, stronger candidate for the general election.
Republicans will rally around the winner... they always do, but perhaps with John McCain/Bob Dole enthusiasm.
Karen Tumulty and Amy Gardner:
The first to feel the assault was the front-runner of the moment, Herman Cain, who is struggling to prove that he is a serious contender and not merely another evanescent phenom of this election season. He was thrown on the defense by new criticism of his signature “9-9-9” tax overhaul plan, which an independent analysis released shortly before the debate indicated would be a boon to the wealthy and put a significantly heavier burden on lower- and middle-income Americans.
EJ Dionne:
That was fun tonight. Attack, defend, attack and attack some more. Texas Gov. Rick Perry had some problems in tonight’s Republican presidential debate, as he’s had before -- do we really want to “defund the United Nations”? -- but he was a real presence this time, and I thought he put some life back into his campaign.
Former Gov. Mitt Romney found himself on the defensive as he never has been before. His health-care plan in Massachusetts finally got a real going-over, with Sen. Rick Santorum leading the way. Santorum was an important player throughout the discussion, and this has to give him a bump -- in attention, if not in the polls.
That is correct: not in the polls. And the attention will be short-lived.
Andrew Kohut (Pew):
The American public is beginning to take notice of the "Occupy movement." The Pew Research Center's polling this week finds a growing number of people paying attention to news about the movement. And the Gallup Poll found that among the minority of its respondents who are paying very close attention to the story, there is significantly more approval than disapproval of the Occupy movement's goals.
This may well be an indicator of how a broader slice of the public comes to view the movement, given the climate of opinion about the issues being raised. Three themes in the data suggest that the public may respond positively to the goals of the Occupy movement, but not necessarily its tactics.