OK, so Mitt Romney wins Florida. I just don’t know. I’ve tried - really, I have - but I just can’t warm up to the guy. Maybe it’s because I detest politicians who always stay on message about what they’re going to do without saying anything about how they’re going to do it. His “Believe In America” slogan makes me want to vomit, and I just think he’s an empty-suit, the kind of guy who’d leave a message on your answering machine telling you your employment had been terminated. Come November, I’ll vote for anyone but Obama, but I sure wish someone with substance like Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan or Kentucky Senator Rand Paul were running. But it’s not their time, and I’m willing to wait until 2016 to see that happen.

It’s about time. Now I can go back to tossing a buck or two in the till whenever I see them fund-raising. You gotta love the way the AP paints this story (my boldings):

According to the AP, the move will mean “a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams. Planned Parenthood confirms that Komen is the first, and only, organization to cut off funding since the Congress began debating the issue in earnest last winter.”

Bullshit. The move means less money given to PP for abortions, which is all they really exist for. Hopefully, the next step is Congress cutting off all PP funding. If they want to continue their death factories, let the oh-so-compassionate liberals and feminists so ardently in favor of killing unwanted babies put their money where their fat mouths are.

While I don’t agree with everything the Roman Catholic Church stands for when it comes to political action (my ties are entirely theological and dogmatic), I have to side with them on the recent decision by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “contraception mandate” requiring all employers to offer their employees health insurance that provides FDA-approved contraception, female sterilization, and other “reproductive” services free of charge. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has it exactly right here: this is nothing but an outrageous frontal attack on religious freedom and civil liberty, and they’re right to declare they will not comply with this “Shut Up and Hand Out Abortion Pills” decision. Hopefully, the Obama administration will com eto their senses and back down; otherwise, there is little doubt it will be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court somewhere down the road.

Of course, no one should be surprised at the Obama administration’s blatant attempts to shove it’s far-left ideology down the throats of American citizens. Just wait to see what happens if this banana republic dictator-wannabe gets re-elected.

Hopefully, this will finally seal the fate of Attorney General Eric Holder and his increasingly-implausible defence of his and his Department of Justice’s actions to coverup the illegal gun-running “Fast and Furious” operation that has left the Department with the blood of hundreds of Mexican civilians and one, perhaps two, U.S. border agents on their filthy, corrupt hands. Once again, this is a case of the Obama administration’s far-left ideology to impose their own agenda (in this case, increased gun control legislation) through actions that shred the U.S. Constitution.

Believe me, there have been other Presidents in our nation’s history who have been impeached for less. But I guess talking like that these days makes you a racist, doesn’t it?

R.I.P. Kevin H. White, former mayor of Boston. To me, he was a great mayor who loved his city, wanted to see the city prosper, and was a visionary the likes you just don’t see anymore. I have fond memories of Boston comedian Steve Sweeney going on the late, great Jerry Williams’ afternoon talk show to do his impersonation of “the mayor of the schitty of Borston”. Too bad there’s no audio of those appearances, they were a howl and great political satire. Condolences to his family and loved ones, he was a great man.

Even if you’re a fan of Barack Obama, there is a Mark Steyn article in this week’s National Review Online that should be required reading for everyone concerned about the direction of this country. His idea for how the President could have saved everyone 89 1/2 minutes of their lives during his State Of The Union speech last Tuesday is, sadly, all too true had the President had the courage to lay it all out for the American people in language anyone could understand:

“The State of our Union is broke, heading for bankrupt, and total collapse shortly thereafter. Thank you and goodnight! You’ve been a terrific crowd!”

Of course, he didn’t, and even the most ardent liberal Democrat who stuck around for the whole thing could not have helped but come away with some sense of an incredible shrinking Presidency where the great ideas behind “Hope and Change” have dissolved into a simple and cynical class warfare against “billionaires” and their need to pay higher taxes in the name of “fairness” - as if simply by doing so it would poof our economic problems away, thus eliminating the need by the President and our elected officials in Washington to have to actually face this country’s desperate economic situation head on:

The president certainly had facts and figures at his disposal. He boasted that his regulatory reforms “will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years.” Wow. Ten billion smackeroos! That’s some savings — and in a mere half a decade! Why, it’s equivalent to what the government of the United States borrows every 53 hours. So by midnight on Thursday Obama had already re-borrowed all those hard-fought savings from 2017. “In the last 22 months,” said the president, “businesses have created more than three million jobs.” Impressive. But 125,000 new foreign workers arrive every month (officially). So we would have to have created 2,750,000 jobs in that period just to stand still.

…

An honest leader would feel he owed it to the citizenry to impress upon them one central truth — that we can’t have any new programs because we’ve spent all the money. It’s gone. The cupboard is bare. What’s Obama’s plan to restock it? “Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary,” the president told us. “Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

…

The so-called “Buffett Rule” is indicative not so much of “common sense” as of the ever widening gap between the Brobdingnagian problem and the Lilliputian solutions proposed by our leaders. Obama can sacrifice the virgin daughters of every American millionaire on the altar of government spending and the debt gods will barely notice so much as to give a perfunctory belch of acknowledgement. The president’s first term has added $5 trillion to the debt — a degree of catastrophe unique to us. In an Obama budget, the entire cost of the Greek government would barely rate a line-item. Debt-to-GDP and other comparative measures are less relevant than the hard-dollar numbers: It’s not just that American government has outspent America’s ability to fund it, but that it’s outspending the planet’s.

Read the whole thing - it’s truth-talking few, if any of our electeds are talking about. And it should be - every day.

The final GOP debate before the Florida primary was as entertaining and combative as was expected, with lots of fireworks and sharp contrasts being painted by each candidate against the others. At the outset it looked like it was going to be a tiring tit-for-tat between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, but that ended pretty quickly after Rick Santorum (displaying a far more combative and colorful persona than he has to date) brought everyone back to earth and refused to let moderator Wolf Blitzer play willing antagonist. While the debate was far better than Monday night’s snoozefest - primarily because the audience’s questions were excellent, putting old Wolf to shame - there’s just no point in expecting any debate hosted by the main TV networks or cable channels to be anything than “gotcha” questions asked for the purposes of a cheap sound bite.

Still, any good gundown has winners and losers, and there were some tonight. Given the theme of this post, let’s rate them with bullets:

1. Mitt Romney (4 bullets). Not because he had a better debate than all the others (that goes to Rick Santorum, for which I’ll explain below), but because Santorum did so well compared to Newt Gingrich. If the sense was that Newt hit his ceiling after winning the South Carolina, partly because of the Romney’s attacks at the Monday debate, partly because Newt once again drifted off message and back into dream-weaving, Romney’s performance was enough to keep that going. Last night showed a more forceful Romney while displaying the same annoying weaknesses that Republicans and conservatives tear their hair out over: he got caught not knowing one of his ads criticized Gingrich out of context, and he got absolutely pistol-whipped by Santorum on RomneyCare. Still, he had good answers on his private sector experience, and he showed a more human side to him on the (stupid) Blitzer question on how his wife would make a good First Lady. His answer on why he was the most qualified to beat Barack Obama was solid, if not totally convincing. Because Newt didn’t win, Romney wins on points.

2. Rick Santorum (3 bullets). Santorum was much more animated, more substantial, and thus better able to separate himself from Gingrich and Romney last night than he had been able to do previously. Most will think he came out ahead in terms of style and substance, but one can’t help feel that this is all too little, too late for him. Unless GOP voters suddenly (and overwhelmingly) decide that both Romney and Gingrich are so flawed as candidates they can’t trust or take a chance on either of them, I don’t see Santorum as a major player in the primaries going forward. Lacking the money and the organization, a good debate alone is just not going to propel him anywhere at this juncture.

3. Ron Paul (2 bullets). Same Ron Paul. If you love him, nothing he can do will change your mind. To me he looked more pale and tired than usual. Got in his usual effective one-liners and quips that endear him to his following, but he’s not going to win the nomination.

4. Newt Gingrich (1 bullet). Newt needed a big performance tonight and came up short. Started off going negative on Romney before turning on Wolf Blitzer with another blame-the-moderator response that seemed forced and awkward (ultimately leading to a Romney counterpunch that left Newt ducking for cover), then spent the rest of the debate again emphasizing his Washington experiences in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. When Newt concentrates on substance and problem-solving, he’s the best up there, but lately this continous walk through the Reagan and Clinton administrations just makes him seem like a well-connected Washington insider living out past gun battles. I’ve counted out Newt before, so I’m hesitant to do it again, but his star seems to be fading, and fast.

So there you have it. Thankfully, there are no more debates for a month! My prediction is that Romney wins Florida by 7-8 points, which will send conservatives into a panic. In the unlikely event Newt arises again, it will only be because of a GOP repudiation of Mitt Romney and the thought of nominating yet another weak-kneed, spineless moderate as the nominee.

Make no mistake about it: the fear and trembling in conservative quarters is palpable and could turn into full-blown panic if Romney wins Florida. Santorum’s campaign is on fumes, and while Paul will continue to rack up enough delegates to make him a player at the August convention, no one seriously considers him a viable nominee. There’s a huge schism forming in the Republican Party - a lot of conservatives (count me among them) very worried about Romney in a head-to-head match against Barack Obama, and it’s not out of the question that someone like Indiana governor Mitch Daniels (who gave a boffo GOP response to Obama’s State Of The Union address the other night) could be prodded to enter late with the goal of gathering momentum into the convention and being a brokered choice everyone could get behind. I’d love to see that happen…

Tonight’s GOP debate hosted by NBCPolitics.com was, in a long list of poorly-conceived and moderated debates, the worst of them all. Brian Williams ought to be ashamed of himself for committing the one cardinal offense you can make in the television/entertainment industry: being boring. Let me ask you something: how on God’s green earth can you moderate a GOP presidential debate without asking any questions - not one - about the current Commander-in-Chief? Nothing about the federal debt. Nothing about the “Fast and Furious” scandal and a senior Department of Justice official announcing on Friday he was taking the 5th at the next Congressional hearing. Nothing about the President’s State of the Union address tomorrow evening. Nothing about the Keystone pipeline decision.

What did we get instead? Questions about sugar subsidies (!), the Terri Schiavo controversy of a few years back, a bizarre question about what if China and Cuba switched places - bizarre questions that offered no sense of the issues facing this country or how the candidates might differ from Barack Obama. It was boring, unsubstantial, and a waste of time. Everyone knows Brian Williams is an avowed leftist and his network the #1 Barack Obama ass-kisser, but if you want to host a GOP debate to begin with, shouldn’t you at least give what little journalism chops you might have left have some self-respect?

Conservative commentator David Limbaugh, I think, summed up the night’s proceedings best when he tweeted at the debate’s close: “No one won the debate because there wasn’t a debate. To say someone did win is to accept the false premise that there was one.” Indeed. Shame on Brian Williams, shame on NBC, and, most of all, shame on the GOP candidates for allowing such a snoozefest to take place.

Given all of the above, there were winners and losers to tonight’s debate:

1. Mitt Romney. If Romney ends up winning the GOP nomination and beating Barack Obama in the general election, he’ll have one person to thank - Newt Gingrich. Gingrich’s ascension in the polls, culminating in Romney’s crushing defeat in South Carolina, was the best thing that could have happened to him. While he missed some obvious chances to blast Brian Williams for his inane questions, he nevertheless was sharp, to the point, and pointed in his criticism of Gingrich when he had his chance at the opening of the debate. Was the first candidate to mention our nation’s debt crisis. Took my advice and wiped that stupid grin off his face, replacing it with a slighter smirk, and was forceful in his defense of his own private sector success. His last answer about the seven things he’s do to get the economy moving were crisp and to the point. The bad news is that few, if any, actually watched this debate, the good news is that the commentary on his performance will likely stop his campaign’s bleeding and even turn it back around a bit.

2. Ron Paul. Not a winner, not a loser. He was just there. Typical answers to typical questions. He’s not even campaigning in Florida, and seems to have hit his ceiling in terms of support, so tonight he was just taking up space.

3. Newt Gingrich. Had numerous opportunities to question the inanity of some of Williams’ questions but for whatever reason chose to do not. Romney hammered him hard at the outset about being a Washington insider, lobbyist, and influence peddler, and that seemed to knock Newt off his stride. While he had some decent answers to questions as the “debate” went on, his performance and persona seemed subdued throughout, making him to appear like just another old and tired career politician. Wouldn’t be surprised if today’s polls out of Florida following his SC win are his campaign’s high-water mark.

4. Rick Santorum. Had the most to gain tonight by being forceful and attacking the almost-embarassingly liberal slant of Williams’ questions but instead just repeated the same old positions in the same old way. I’ve come to realize his strengths are as a legislator proposing legislation and debating the same by opponents. He simply can’t let go of policy and talk to people’s concerns and pocketbooks. Time to say goodnight, Rick.

What a difference a week makes.

Hard to believe just a week ago the Beltway pundits were all ready to coronate Mitt Romney as the de facto GOP nominee. Now, after getting crushed in South Carolina by a resurgent Newt Gingrich, all the pressure is on Romney to sell himself anew to Republican primary voters. He ought to know by now that the cool, business-savvy persona isn’t going to play this year: conservatives and Republican voters have had enough of a “Massachusetts moderate” schmoozer who plays get-along with a mainstream dino-media that openly shows its disdain for Republicans and conservatives. This year, GOP primary voters want a fighter who isn’t afraid to call out Barack Obama, his mainstream media ass-kissers, and the milquetoast Republican establishment in Washington out for what they are. As Hugh Hewitt writes:

The South Carolina electorate didn’t vote for a person or a platform; they voted for a personality — the fiery, combative, [mainstream media]-hating Newt. They want the GOP nominee to charge at the president, throw around the term Alinksyite, push back at John King and Juan Williams, and shout out the absurdity of Barack Obama as president and the destructiveness of his combination of epic incompetence and awful ideology.

I suspect that the GOP as a whole has a lot of this pent-up anger at the Manhattan-Beltway media elites, and they too have been cool to cool hand Mitt as a result.

As National Review Online’s Terence Jeffrey adds:

Conservatives not only resent the liberal media for trying to pick the Republican nominee (n.b. the media prefer Romney) but they also resent Republican politicians who, once elected, spend their careers appeasing the media while abandoning conservative principles (n.b. the supine leadership of the Republican party in the House of Representatives). Conservatives want a president whose attitude toward the media matches the attitude Gingrich has shown in recent debates. A president with that kind of attitude, they hope, might actually govern as a conservative.

As I alluded to on last Friday’s post after the Thursday night debate, if Romney wants to win the GOP nomination, he’s going to need some significant re-tooling of his message. As an amateur political consultant, here is what I would recommend:

1. Let Newt be Newt. Rather than go after Gingrich hard and negative, I would use my business experience to highlight the differences between you and he when it comes to getting this country’s fiscal house in order. Pound away at the deficit by personalizing to individual Americans what it would mean if this country continues down the reckless spending and borrowing road it is traveling. Comnpare this nation’s debt to something people can relate to - like the iceberg in front of the Titanic. Talk about the danger to people’s stock market investments and 401K plans if Obama is re-elected President. But more than anything, make it personal. You’ll never be one of “the people”, but you can use language that the “regular folks” understand to contrast your “disciplined approach” to Newt’s “grandiose ideas”.

2. Get rid of that weird, smug, used-car dealer half-smile you have while people are asking you questions. Project the kind of serious businessman demeanor you might have used at Bain Capital when reviewing a failing company’s ledgers. You’ve spent the better part of eight months acting as if the nomination was yours for the keeping, you now have to project a more serious and fighting demeanor without being seen as shrill, negative, and panicky.

3. Go after Barack Obama with specifics - people don’t understand “European-style socialism”, and it’s not as if there isn’t plenty to talk about: the blood on his administration’s hands as a result of the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal, the loss of billions of dollars in betting on “green energy” companies like Solyndra and others; the Keystone pipeline decision; Obamacare and its impact on Medicare; the administration’s undelared war on South Carolina, Alabama, Texas, and Arizona over voting laws and immigration, just to name a few. Get specific - that’s why Gingrich’s “food stamp President” line resonated so well with SC voters.

4. More than anything else, release your damned taxes and use it to tell your personal story. You’re a successful businessman, for God’s sake. Use your tax return as a way to tell your story about success. Make it a story that individual people can relate to. Show some humility and make the case that your story shows what any American can do if they work hard enough and educate themselves enough. Forget about the Occupy Wall Street losers; the fact is, American love to make money so they can buy things. Frame your success as a story that others can identify with, make it something like this: “Look, if I can do it, you can do it too, but if you don’t elect someone like me who will change the direction this country is going, no one, not me, not you - will be able to make it in America”.

Fortunately for you, Mitt, the odds are still with you and Gingrich remains a flawed candidate capable of self-destructing at any moment. But another debate where you’re hemming and hawing about your tax returns and not getting into specifics about where the problems are and what you’ll do to fix them if elected, and I’m afraid you’re in for more than a bloody nose.

Another debate, another debate without any question about the biggest issue facing the United States of America today: the fact that we’re awash in debt to the tune of $15 trillion - that’s $15,033,607,255,920.32 as of two months ago. I myself don’t understand it, but evidently the mainstream dino-media elites think that money grows on trees, or that it’s not really a problem. Of course, when you spend all your waking moments inside the Beltway or in New York City, it’s easy to think the federal government can just go on and on and on printing money and the Federal Reserve and China buying up our debt as we kick the can further and further down the road to total economic collapse.

Certainly, Newt Gingrich’s prior marital problems trump anything like that when it comes to presidential politics!

But I digress.

While tonight’s debate was just as entertaining as Fox News’ Monday night affair, it continues to amaze how, nearly eight months after the first GOP debate (has it been that long?) the same questions are still being asked over and over: immigration, abortion, Obamacare. Not that these aren’t important in and of themselves, but this is all well-trampled ground by now. There were no questions about the federal deficit, no questions about the candidates’ plans to cut the size of the federal government, no questions about trade, no questions about energy independence (how Obama’s rejection of the Keystone pipeline wasn’t brought up as an issues astounds, but then again we are talking about the Clinton News Network).

Still, as good as all the candidates were - and I believe, by and large, they were all pretty good tonight - there were winners and losers.

1. Ron Paul - I can’t believe I’m wring this, but Paul won the debate by constantly focusing every one his responses, no matter what the question, to the fiscal mess were in and the misguided priorities and policies of this country. I liked his theme that the very cause of personal freedom is something that can bring people of various political and philosophical stripes together. Because of his continued focus on the gravity of our fiscal house, he’s a winner in my eyes.

2. Mitt Romney - Not as much of a winner, more of a draw, perhaps, but Romney I think did next best. Why he has such problems answering questions about his taxes is beyond me: you’d think he’s have a ready stock answer that was definitive and forceful by now. Still, he kept the focus of most of his answers on Barack Obama, so he’s more a winner than a loser.

3. Newt Gingrich - Unlike (I’m guessing) most conservatives, I didn’t think Newt was as good tonight as he was on Monday. While he was his usual glib self and had some good answers (especially regarding Obamacare and immigration), he looked and sounded old to me. Too many answers about what he did in the ’70s and ’80s, too much “inside baseball” political talk, and he never responded to Rick Santorum’s comments about why he was tossed out as Speaker only five years after being elected to that position. He might indeed win South Carolina, but he’s going to have a lot of trouble relating to young people and independent voters if he’s the nominee.

4. Rick Santorum - Newly crowned winner of the Iowa caucuses, again, too much talk about his positions and what he did when and where. Hard to tell what his actual positions are. Spent all his ammo on the other candidates (Mitt and Newt in particular) and very little on Barack Obama. Obviously bright and very intense, but it’s always about him and not about who he would be running against in a general election. I know he’s trying to appeal to the conservative base, but I think he’s running out of time and out of votes.

Final analysis: No one really harmed themselves tonight except Santorum. I expect Romney and Newt to virtually tie in South Carolina, with Paul a distant third and Santorum coming in last. Santorum will last until Florida, perhaps Nevada, and then there will be three.

I’ve broached this topic in the past, but no one listens to The Great White Shank. In that same vein, Liz Peek’s column in the Financial Times is worth (pardon the pun) more than “a peek”.

Forget the stupid “1% vs. 99%” sloganeering of the Occupy Wall Street clowns, the real divide in this country is between the public sector unions and the states, municipalities, and the taxpayers across the country who have to pay for outrages like this (hat tip: Free Republic). And if you think the PSUs are going to give up one inch of the ground they have gained without protest (both non-violent and violent) you’re dreaming. For, as Peek writes:

Progress like that is taking place elsewhere, but not always so civilly. Governor [Scott] Walker’s efforts to rein in unsustainable public employee costs in Wisconsin (and to reduce a sizeable budget deficit) became the rallying point for terrified union leaders who see their only growth opportunity – public employees – under attack. Though Walker proposed terms that were still more generous than the national averages, his attempts to limit collective-bargaining rights (like 24 other states) aroused labor’s fury. Union leaders struck back, rallying workers from across the country to their cause; they are now trying to force the governor from office.

Another battle pitching organized labor vs. the public interest is the effort to join our competitors in expanding trade deals with other countries. President Obama finally signed trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama which had languished in Congress for years, held up by unions. Even the labor-friendly Obama administration had targeted such pacts as essential to boosting exports and jobs.

These confrontations have left Big Labor bruised but unbowed, and eager to turn public anger elsewhere. They have nurtured and funded the Occupy Wall Street protests for just that reason, ginning up resentment against the “one percent” and especially against banks and bankers. Better to raise taxes on the wealthy than to cut government payrolls. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has over one million members and much to lose from widespread government reform efforts, has been especially eager to support the protests. Stephen Lerner, a highly regarded union organizer and former SEIU official, spoke to students at Pace University last March about his plan to “destabilize” the country through civil disobedience, strikes and large-scale protests. Acknowledging that labor was under pressure and needed to stay out of the spotlight, he insisted that students and community groups take the lead. Welcome to OWS.

Look, I have no problem paying police, firefighters, and state HHS organizations what they earn (not necessarily what they collectively bargained); at least here in Arizona the majority of them do a great job. But others (and most especially, the teachers unions and the bureaucrats) know how to game the system and have been doing it and looting the taxpayers for years.

As long as the states, municipalities, and, of course, the federal government have had the ability to raise taxes on virtually every kind of thing you can imagine, the PSUs have been innculated by the scams they are. But the problem with liberalism in any and all of its forms is that sooner or later you start running out of things to tax, and when that happens (or the economy starts to slow) the greed, graft, corruption, and cronyism necessary to keep the PSU boat afloat starts to take on water.

And greed is at the very core of the PSUs: they love to howl and protest about how police, firefighters and education (after all, children are our future, you know…) will all suffer if even $1 of spending is cut from anywhere, but the only thing they’re really concerned about are their already-grotesque fat-cat compensation packages. It’s all about more money and more benefits, to hell with the fiscal health of the states and municipalities that employ them. With the PSUs it’s all about THEM.

The good news is, as Peek mentions in her column, the tide is turning, primarily because there is no more money. The federal government is some $15 trillion in debt. States like New York, California, and Illinois are like the European Union, on the brink of fiscal disaster. And you can bet you’ll see more of this in 2012 as whole cities (Detroit is a sure thing) declare bankruptcy or make draconian (and I mean true draconian) cuts in services. Of course, you can bet that Democrats from the Atlantic to the Pacific will try and find new avenues of revenue - gas taxes, plastic shopping bags, sales tax increases, etc., but the facts are that the cupboards are almost bare, and facts, as they say, are stubborn things.

My prediction is you’re going to see a sometimes violent pushback from the PSUs this coming year. They’re desperate, they know their time in the sun is running out, and, tough words and threats aside, they’re scared. And they oughta be.

That was a pretty entertaining debate last night in Myrtle Beach. Now that the GOP field has been winnowed down to five, it gave more time to the candidates to answer questions and to - gulp! - actually debate each other without one losing track of the scorecard. I enjoyed this debate immensely, and I look forward to Thursday night’s CNN debate hoping that there will be more questions about the federal deficit and reigning in this country’s reckless spending. Here are my winners and losers from top to bottom:

1. Newt Gingrich - Newt was en fuego tonight, as he reverted back to the entertaining, substantive, and combative Newt of earlier debates. He wiped the floor with Juan Williams when the latter attempted to bait him into race and class warfare with his Obama “food stamps President” comment and his suggestion about teens learning good work habits by doing light janitorial work at schools. Newt turned Juan’s question around masterfully, accusing liberal elites like him of hating capitalism in its most basic form. For that, he got a standing ovation from the audience. He was good pretty much throughout, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the gap between him and Mitt Romney close significantly over the next few days.

2. Rick Perry - his best debate yet by far, but it’s too little too late for him and his campaign. If the Perry that showed up last night had been there from the start he’d already have the nomination locked down. His answers were direct, to the point, easy to understand, and spot-on conservative red meat. For Perry, it’s a case of what might have been. Too bad.

3. Rick Santorum - had a decent-enough performance, but he was dwarfed by both Gingrich’s and Perry’s performances. He obviously knows his stuff, but he spends too much time qualifying or defending why he believes in or stands for something instead of just letting it rip. Because he’s going after the same voters as Gingrich and Perry, I don’t think his performance will give him any boost in the polls.

4. Mitt Romney - to me it seemed like he was a little off center all night. He did a poor job answering the initial questions on Bain Capital, had a poor answer on the Super PAC question, completely blew the question on releasing his tax returns, and was all over the place just about everywhere else. Tonight was the first time I saw him a little unprepared: not a good feeling for conservatives who dread the idea of Romney getting the nomination. He had a real chance to nail down the nomination with a boffo performance last night; instead, this was his worst debate yet and he’s opened the door for a Gingrich revival.

5. Ron Paul - tonight Paul reverted back to the “crazy uncle” act that we’ve seen in just about every other debate. Newt was right to slam him for comparing peaceful, democracy-loving Chinese dissidents here in the US with Osama bin Laden, and Paul seemed to get tied up in knots defending that. When he dragged out Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” line, it was turn out the lights, Gracie. The guy is batsh*t nuts.

The big unseen winner tonight was the audience who tuned in to see a debate without Jon Huntsman in it: having him drop out of the race earlier today was the campaign equivalent of when the most drunk and obnoxious person at the party finally leaves: everyone lets out a deep breath and begins to relax and have some fun.

This past week, I think, will go down in this year’s election roller-coaster ride as the week that the Republican field defined itself in terms of who’s in it for the long-term and who is not. It’s pretty easy to figure out who the ones with lasting power are and aren’t. Let’s take a look at the winners and losers of tonight’s debate in order:

1. You can now call Mitt Romney the presumptive nominee for the GOP this year. While it remains to be seen whether or not he really won the Iowa caucuses (I’m guessing his 8-vote win over Rick Santorum will not hold up and he’ll finish second by a dozen votes or so), he did win New Hampshire, and barring any crazy stuff, will win both the South Carolina and Florida primaries, leaving him a clear path to the nomination. It didn’t have to be that way, but Texas Governor Rick Perry has run an awful campaign, performing poorly in debates and now going after Romney for his role at Bain Capital (something right out of the Occupy Wall Street handbook), and Newt Gingrich has imploded, showing the kind of “evil Newt” tendencies that ran him into so much disfavor as Speaker of the House back in the late ’90s.

2. Ron Paul is quickly emerging as the anti-Romney candidate, but do Republicans really want a candidate who’s basically an isolationist libertarian to run against Barack Obama? Look, I agree with a lot of what Dr. Paul says when it comes to the bloated federal government, crony capitalism, and the Fed’s monetary policy, but his ideas about foreign policy are off-the-chart insane in the kind of world we live in. Still, he’s racked up two solid showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, and if I’m Rick Santorum, I’m spending the next week going after Paul for the very reasons I mention above. A strong showing by Paul in South Carolina would be devastating to the rest of the GOP field.

3. Rick Santorum’s showing after Iowa was a disappointment, and I’m guessing he’s regretting that he spent any time and resources in New Hampshire this week, given that he has nothing to show for it. I think he would have been better off ceding NH to Romney and exploiting his Iowa showing and solid conservative credentials with the folks in South Carolina. He really had no chance in NH, so why bother when there are far more important battles to be won. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. Even though he finished in the back of the pack, the fact his campaign continues to take the high ground (unlike Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich) may bode well for primary opportunities ahead. Look for Santorum to ramp up his attacks on Ron Paul in the next week, since it’s Paul who’s the only one in his way to being the true “anti-Mitt”.

4. Rick Perry, only because he spent the week doing what Santorum should have been doing. Only problem is, his over-the-top criticism of Romney’s Bain Capital experiences a day after Newt opened up that front made him look like he was piling on. But that’s typical for Perry’s entire campaign, which has been poorly run from the start. His poll numbers better start ticking upward in SC in the next few days, or he risks not even making the cut for the next debate Monday night (hosted by Fox News, which has a poll % minimum requirement).

5. Jon Huntsman, who finished a disappointing (for him) third in NH. Two questions here: 1) is there a more boring and uninspiring candidate in the field? And, 2) does anyone really care what this guy thinks? I mean, he pours all his money and resources into NH with a strategy that a solid second would make him the defacto anti-Mitt (not a bad idea in and of itself); then, not only does he finish behind Paul by a lot, his speech is more warmed-over crap that you’ve already heard him say numerous times during the debates. I mean, maybe the guy has some legitimate ideas, but a candidate that generates less enthusiasm I don’t recall ever seeing.

6. Newt Gingrich. I have to admit, I’m very disappointed in Newt. Sharp, articulate, engaging, combative, and interesting in the debates, over the past week he’s turned into a nasty, bitter, confrontational figure hell-bent on destroying Romney in every way. Sure, Romney’s PAC ads in Iowa got under his skin, but if he didn’t think his Washington connections were going to get scrutinized in a primary contest he’s not as smart as he thinks he is. Hard to believe that just a month ago he was leading in the polls, but his vanity got the best of him and now his campaign has imploded, leaving him looking like the Old Man Potter of the field, a warped, frustrated old man.

So what happens in the next couple of weeks? Watch for Romney to sharpen his economic focus to further distinguish himself from Barack Obama in the hopes of solidifying his conservative credentials. Santorum goes hard after Paul to try and get a second or third in SC and Florida so he can become the “anti-Mitt” conservative. Perry’s campaign ends after a disappointing finish in SC. Gingrich continues to hang on, hoping for a miracle but drops out after Florida. And as for Huntsman, who cares?

After a drumbeat for the better part of a year, the Iowa caucuses are now (thankfully) history. The first votes of the 2012 election season have been taken, and Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum can all claim a qualified victory. Qualified because the caucuses allow day-of registration (meaning anyone can come in off the street and participate) but, more importantly, the caucus process itself chooses winners and losers based on the wheeling and dealing nature of the caucuses themselves. Remember that back in 2008 Mike Huckabee was the winner in Iowa; lotta good that did him. Next week New Hampshire will host the first true GOP primary, followed by all-important South Carolina and Florida - two states destined to play a much larger role in who will ultimately be the GOP’s nominee than anything Iowa or New Hampshire do.

Still, Iowa does has a habit of beginning the whittling down process, and there were some definite losers who will pack their bags for New Hampshire and South Carolina knowing they’ve got the odds stacked heavily against them:

Michele Bachmann’s campaign is Titanic + iceberg + 50 minutes post-collision. I think she’s wrangling for a VP consideration if Mitt Romney gets the eventual nomination, but she has to know her campaign is done. Proving once again that, unless you’re someone like Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan (who has done much to shape the political debate this year) folks running from Congress lack the record, experience, and gravitas to effectively run for President. Stick a fork in her, she’s done.

Rick Perry spent something like $40 mil on ad buys in Iowa and came in low second-tier. To speak in the vernacular of a Texan, he’s got one bullet left in his gun, and that’s to turn in a larger-than-life boffo performance in this coming Saturday night’s debate in South Carolina. It’s the only chance he’s got. If he doesn’t finish first or second in SC, his campaign is over.

Newt Gingrich is also a loser in Iowa. Just a month ago his campaign was riding high in the polls after receiving the endorsement of New Hampshire’s influential Manchester Union Leader but he immediate squandered his good fortune: first, with his foolish pronouncement that he was the GOP’s inevitable nominee, then allowing Mitt Romney to get under his skin with his comment about Newt’s past association with Fannie Mae, and finally his last debate performance where he talked about impeaching judges for extra-Constitutional legal decisions. In doing so, he showed himself as pompous, thin-skinned, and esoteric - the very same qualities that got him removed as House Speaker way back in the late ’90s. Newt is too smart for his own good, always has been. Which is too bad, I liked Newt a lot.