PoliGazette

Dean Barnett wrote an article for The Daily Standard about yesterday’s Republican debate. Who are, in his opinion, the winners and losers?

Winners:

- Fred Thompson, closely followed by Mitt Romney. For Thompson his performance could very well, according to Barnett, revive his campaign.

Losers:

- Mike Huckabee, John McCain and to a lesser degree Rudy Giuliani.

The ‘losest’:

- the people: nurse Ratched ruined the debate by excluding immigration and Iraq and not letting the candidates debate each other.

Now, Barnett wrote a funny article, but his analysis is greatly influenced by his political views. It’s clear that he doesn’t think too highly of Huckabee while he probably wants Thompson to win. As I wrote in my liveblogging post yesterday, to me, this debate had no clear winners. All first tier candidates performed well. How anyone can write, in all seriousness, that Mike Huckabee wasn’t up to his game is beyond me. He did well, in this regard I suggest you read this article at ABC News which praises Huckabee for his (swell) performance.

On the other hand, ABC is pro-Huckabee and anti-Thompson - the article says that Huckabee did great, whereas Thompson… well, Thompson is, according to ABC, the big loser.

Which is not true either of course. Thompson did quite well.

And yes, it was only a debate in name only .