I don't watch primary debates: they're basically like picking which colour you want the wall, so long as its white (pun intended.) You know who is going to say what, and generally, people on the campaign trail truth themselves out long before the debates roll in.
So I let the punditry "analyze"-- because really, what kind of analysis does white paint need?-- and I rely on them to let me know who they think won, and who lost.
I knew going in that Herman Cain would get beaten on and it was a matter of how hard he could fight back. Not hard enough, it seemed, from the highlights I saw. He never really answered the charge that his "Nein! Nein! Nein!" tax plan was a bad idea and would burden more Americans with higher taxes, and would add a sales tax to the mix, one that states would probably decline to collect: "apples and oranges," he called it, but as Romney pointed out, you can have both in a basket of fruit.
Romney, for his part, will have to work pretty hard in the OccupyWallStreet environment to dispell the elitist rich guy image he's so carefully cultivated as a marker of his financial and business acumen. Statements like "So we went to the [gardening] company and we said, 'Look, you can’t have any illegals working on our property. I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake – we can’t have illegals.'... And let me tell you, it is hard in this country as an individual homeowner to know if people who are contractors working at your home, if they have hired people that are illegal."
It was OK for Zoe Baird to have an illegal nanny until she was nominated to the SCOTUS. Romney ought to have learned the lesson that you take care of this stuff off the books and early. He's basically admitting it wasn't an issue for him until it became clear that appearances matter.
Anyway, go read the article I linked to. It's fun to watch the GOP stammer and mutter their way to oblivion.
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