Seemed to me he was bending over backwards to be respectful and not come off as attacking – pointing out they have had a good relationship for years.

He was simply pointing out that we don’t need to see a question about Romney’s tax returns raised in 3 different debates. He already said that with Mitt releasing his tax records that particular issue has been set aside. Blitzer bringing it up did seem trivial.

I actually thought Newt made his point that any remark he made in an interview doesn’t need to be turned into a debate topic.

He didn’t feel the need to question Romney about his campaign’s recent choice to try and present Newt as emotionally unstable — or about his continuing to attack Newt on ethics charges when Newt has been exonerated.

(skipping over that last point was a serious failure on Wolf’s part and really showed his bias)

There may be some people who watch a debate to see where candidates stand on issues but – especially after so many debates – I expect most people know that and are watching to see what kind of people they are and how they conduct themselves- and generally viewers are going to be aware of what candidates and moderators are trying to do.

Newt came off as the most respectful of the other candidates and had the soundest ideas.

For example. when the other candidates all piled on saying Newt was promising all these different things to people in every state and it was dishonest, unrealistic, etc— it made *them* look bad, not Newt. For one thing it didn’t sound like he was planning to increase NASA’s budget – he was talking about switching over to a system of prizes that has proven effective in encouraging private investment. Sounded like it would actually cost less money than whatever we’re spending now.

Romney talking about Newt promising to work with Veterans groups to make sure they had a hospital in New Hampshire and didn’t have to go out of state for treatment as if it was some extravagance — I was left simply shaking my head.

Now, granted I’m a Newt supporter but would think a lot of undecideds also heard that and were thinking: Whatever the economy – taking care of veterans needs to be a priority. It’s outrageous that they don’t even have a hospital that serves them in their own state. We don’t need a president who sees that we’re in a recession and uses that as an excuse to skip out on genuine obligations.

Especially with all the things the federal government wastes money on.

When Newt talked about learning what each state needed and setting priorities — that made a lot of sense.

The other candidates attacking him on it just looked like opportunists who weren’t even bothering to consider the merits of what he said.

And, even with space, which seems to be a big thing Newt gets made fun of for: He was presenting a much more exciting vision while the other candidates seemed resigned to our decline.

Offering a prize as an incentive to inspire private investors to figure out how to put a man on Mars or a permanent colony on the moon — would not only be exciting in itself — but would also, almost certainly, lead to advances in technology that could be used in any number of other ways and make America more competitive in the world market.

The other candidates completely missed the point.

However many jabs were thrown — despite the fact the moderator did everything possible to hurt Newt — I still thought he looked the best.

people on the Newt campaign accused Romney’s camp of packing the debate with their supporters.

Wouldn’t surprise me and it wouldn’t be hard to do. The Florida GOP controlled who go 900 of the 1200 seats — and says they were careful to make sure almost all of them were genuinely undecided. All Romney would have to do is send a bunch of his supporters instructing them to pretend to be undecided.

It didn’t play like a crowd of undecided (based on the early big applause for Romney for things like introducing himself — it played like a crowd of committed supporters)

Packing an audience seems like the kind of thing Romney would do. He probably figures Newt got big applause at the South Carolina debate was deemed the winner and got positive press for it – wins South Carolina by a landslide.

He doesn’t get that the applause came because Newt was saying compelling truths — just figures he can manufacture it and get the same results.

Romney looked very flustered when Rick was hitting him on Romneycare and he looked the best on the “who would make the best FLOTUS question”

Newt was obviously on defense and Romney and Ron Paul used it to contrast their marriage to Newt’s – so it played as a hit rather than a heartfelt appreciation of their wives. Rick Santorum just used the question to honor and appreciate his wife and he was as likeable as I’ve ever seen him.

Didn’t care for his strategy of trying to lump Newt and Mitt together on Romneycare (and Newt was right to call him on it) and constantly bringing up Newt’s prior support of the individual mandate is getting old.

Surely there were uninformed voters then too.

I don’t agree about Romney being at his best. He made a lot of big mistakes that aren’t getting much attention.

To list 3:

1. Nodding in cocky agreement when Newt said comparing his investments to Romney’s is like “comparing a mouse to an elephant” that would play beautifully spliced with other comments (like “I like firing people.” “for the economy to grow, a lot of people have to suffer” etc.) in their various class warfare related attacks.

2. Saying he hadn’t seen an attack ad run by his official campaign that smeared Gingrich was as ridiculous as Ron Paul saying he didn’t know what was published in his own newsletters.

3. Talking about building a hospital for veterans who have to currently go out of state to receive medical care as if that were some kind of extravagant promise.

Romney makes mistakes ALL THE TIME and it just never gets emphasized. With Newt or Perry any gaffe is played to the hilt.

I would expect that much of the media would spin anything other than absolute, undeniable dominance by Newt as a big Newt loss and Romney win. They didn’t disappoint.

The winning Non-Romney outperformed most of their poll numbers significantly in both Iowa and South Carolina.

In SC, Newt won with 40.4% of the vote — almost a full 7 points higher than his 33.5 RCP average.

In IA, Santorum outperformed his polling average by over 12%

For all his vaunted organization, Romney doesn’t seem to get that great of turn out.

In NH, Romney finished 1.5 points ahead of his final polling average — but 2-5 points below where he was polling just 2 days to a week before the vote.

So, even in his stronghold Romney lost support near the end.

Florida doesn’t vote till Tuesday. I’d say the trends favor Gingrich.

from Wolfe Blitzer and Newt also as he seems to be trying to be positive and Presidential and not getting into petty squabbles.

Mark Levin just ripped into Romney and those backing him for trying to trash Gingrich and bringing up the hyper-partisan Democrats ethics charges. It’s over on http://www.therightscoop.com