Five Things Leared From the Ames Debates

And no, Perry didn't win

Chris Wallace in particular would not let anyone wiggle out of any question and there was no noticeable slant in the questions asked to the candidates. Wallace zeroed in on candidates on the question of the 10th amendment and whether or not a state could force citizens to buy healthcare. I didn’t take “sometimes” for an answer. If previous debates on Fox this year were chided for treating the panelists like they were second-class citizens waiting for the big dogs, this debate showed that it is putting all of these guys to the test. And some of the them stepped up and did pretty well, which brings us to our next lesson from last night’s debate.

3.   Minnesota ain’t big enough for Bachmann and T-Paw.
I cannot remember the last time you had a former governor and congress-member from the same state running against each other when both campaigns felt that they were still competitive. (Ron Paul v. Bush doesn’t count!). Someone apparently dropped some five-hour energy into Tim Pawlenty’s cereal that morning because he came out blazing and took jabs at Romney and Bachmann.

Bachamnn for her part gave as good as she got, and in fact was probably the best debater through the first half of the program. She accused Pawlenty of compromising with the left and failing to support the unborn in order to balance the budget with liberals while he was governor of Minnesota. He said her answers were “illogical,” which has a slight tinge of sexism to it.

Perhaps the hard knocks in the first hour tired Bachmann out because she was off her game for the second half. First, she was late getting back to her podium after the mid-debate break, which was a faux pas, and didn’t do anything to mitigate rumors that she’s disorganized or worse, “ditzy,” second it seemed like for the second half of the debate she was essentially silent.

She didn’t get many questions and most of the commentators focused on other candidates. The Pawlenty campaign has all but said that without a good showing in Iowa on Saturday he might have to pack it in soon, in Bachmann’s case if her intra-state fight last night causes her to slip in the polls she might have Pawlenty to thank.