The Florida Debate

I didn't see the debate live. But I have used my lunchtime and some other downtime today to watch the YouTube'd debate. The first ten minute segment can be found here--you can get to the other 8 segments from there.

My partisan analysis: as in the previous debate, Fred and Rudy did well. McCain did ok as did Huckabee. It all fell off from there. I thought that Mitt did a very poor job myself, though I have seen others that thought that Mitt did well. Note that I don't give credit for applause lines. The best lines were not delivered by Fred and Rudy (though they did have some good lines), but they did have the best content.

Fred was aggressive and he kept on the others without tearing them apart. The Fox team did a good job of keeping the debate lively.

In Fred's after-interview, he touched on something that I noticed that bothers me: everyone likes to talk about Hillary and Reagan. More effort should be taken to talk about the future of the party, which is an important topic. It is also where the distinction between Fred and Rudy comes into focus. Fred will take the party into a federalist and generally conservative approach. Rudy will be a strong leader, but will allow the Democrats to help write or negotiate the domestic agenda which will not be particularly conservative.