Politico’s 7 Take Aways from the Florida Debate Thursday night:
1) This was the “Trading Places” debate
For a 120 minutes, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich essentially traded roles — Romney, often meek and shrill-sounding as he defended himself this cycle, became the aggressor, and Gingrich, who’s played the debate hall crowd like a musical instrument in the past, seemed to shrink from the attacks.
Romney came with balled-up fists to the debate stage, and swung hard at Gingrich during the first few questions — in the exact fashion that the former House Speaker has typically gone at the front-runner.
But it’s the first half-hour of almost every GOP debate that’s set the tone for the rest — so the debate counts as a victory for Romney, who needed to keep the momentum from moving away from him again.
2) Whither Gingrich?
It was Gingrich who needed to recapture his momentum and he simply couldn’t do it.
The former House Speaker, appealingly pugnacious to GOP voters in past debates, simply seemed worn out and off point. Gone was the brawler who could whip up the crowd. And it’s not quite clear where he went.
He never raised any of the well-worn phrases he’s used to define Mitt Romney on the stump — “Massachusetts moderate” comes to mind. He also bypassed an opportunity to hit Romney over his Massachusetts health-care plan.
Gingrich’s pushback against Romney over the immigration issue simply failed to connect. He initially tried to avoid repeating his criticisms of Romney’s now-closed Swiss bank account on the debate stage — something he’s hit him for on the trail in the last few days.
Whatever the reason, this was not A-game Gingrich, who has used debates to pivot to strength. For a candidate who has cited his strength in debates as an electability factor and who needed to get his momentum back, this wasn’t a strong night.
3) The crowd was with Romney
Gingrich got what he wanted — a noisy crowd — after the audience was silenced in Monday night’s NBC News debate. Unfortunately for him, the crowd preferred Romney.
It’s hard to overstate how significant this was.
The crowd helped set the tone early on, noisily cheering for Romney after he derided Gingrich over the “anti-immigrant” claim. It was some of the loudest cheering Romney has gotten in any debate, and it largely came at Gingrich’s expense.
Many wondered whether Romney packed the debate hall with supporters; even if he did, he would hardly be the first candidate to so — it’s what well-run campaigns usually do.
4) Rick Santorum’s got game
We’ve said before that there’s no reason for Santorum to drop out of the race any time soon, and Thursday night’s debate was another reminder of why.
Santorum turned in another strong debate performance, and shined in areas where Gingrich failed to.
It was Santorum who brought the toughest attack against Romney over Massachusetts health care. Every time Romney pushed back, Santorum went back at him — underscoring every time that he thinks the former Massachusetts governor would have a hard time distinguishing himself against President Obama in the fall.
He also successfully tethered Gingrich to Romney over the issue of an individual health care mandate.
Romney called him “angry,” but GOP voters — for whom Obamacare remains a red flag and a major base-motivator — may not quite see it that way, and could be offended by Romney’s characterization.
5) Ron Paul was a crowd-pleaser
That does not mean he was giving serious answers to questions.
The Texas congressman laughed it up as he made quips about going for a 25-mile bike ride to prove he is in good health, and said the first thing he’d ask of Cuba’s leader if he called was what he wanted to talk about.
6) Wolf Blitzer refused to be John King
King got a memorable beat-down from Gingrich at the start of the last CNN debate, a few days before the South Carolina primary. Gingrich rode an anti-mainstream media wave of applause from the GOP crowd that night, and King retreated from asking any further questions about allegations from Gingrich’s second wife.
Blitzer refused to play that role.
He pushed Gingrich to explain comments he’d made on the stump about Romney’s wealth. When Gingrich looked exasperated, Blitzer continued.
7) The pause in debates is coming at just the right moment
After a season of what felt like dozens of debates, there are no more scheduled until Feb. 22 — when CNN hosts another event, this time in Arizona in advance of that state’s primary.
It’s a timely pause, given that, after so many of these face-offs, there really are no major, relevant questions left to ask of the remaining four GOP hopefuls. What more can voters possibly learn about the candidates that they haven’t heard in the six that have been held since Jan. 4?
