My thoughts on this debate (ABC News, Yahoo! 10 DEC 11)

[GHoeberX]

I was highly critical how Ron Paul performed at the Huckabee forum; it was really really bad. He spoke too fast, he couldn't hear himself; it was a mess.

However, yesterday night, the ABC-debate was an out of the park homerun. He spoke so clearly; it was the first debate which I can remember in which he spoke with so much pauses, and he got a lot of respect from his fellow Republicans. I think it was: excellent excellent debate for Ron Paul! He didn't have one of those amazing new lines, but this was perfect for the Iowa-voters, who still haven't made up their mind!

 

[jdmyprez_deo_vindice]

My thoughts are that Ron did fantastic. Even if I was not a fanboy I would be thinking that Paul came across as a winner in this debate and I would be taking a second look at him based off of his answers to the questions and the obvious respect that the other candidates are showing him at this juncture. Beyond that, I think Perry is done. Bachmann seems really desperate and is pandering so hard that she is even turning off a populace which traditionally loves pandering. Santorum was essentially a non factor but you can see that he is next in line to be pushed. Romney may have just sunk his campaign with that $10,000 bet remark (really not playing well on Facebook even among non Ron people). I also think Huntsman might as well drop. The fact that he has missed so many debates for various reasons has made him so low tier that he might as well share a campaign van with Gary Johnson.

 

[realtonygoodwin]

Not even close. EVERYONE went after Newt. They exposed his record as a big government insider loon who backed a health care mandate, child labor, global warming alarmism, the TARP bailouts, and strip mining the moon. He had no defense because it was all true.

Of course everyone went after him. He is the undisputed front-runner. But, he defended himself fairly well, and nothing really stuck. He wasn't "exposed" because all this stuff is old news and already known about him.

"Didn't do much to expand his base of support!?!?!?"

What exactly does he need to do to do that, OP?

I'm not sure specifically. But he needs to do more to stand out and get lots of coverage in the following news cycle that doesn't come from negative things. For example, Herman Cain's 9-9-9 thing. Yeah, it was a stupid plan, but it got a lot of people looking into him. It is hard to do anymore since I think most everything is known about each candidate. They all have plans, there probably will be no big bombshells, they have high name ID, etc