After watch­ing and sleep­ing on the debate overnight, here’s my thoughts about it.

Ander­son Cooper rev­eled in mas­ter­fully egging every­one on in a debate that showed mostly the weak­nesses of the var­i­ous can­di­dates.  It made great and infor­ma­tive the­ater.  The result was also rather troubling.

Perry was inter­rup­tive and rude, took cheap shots, and was sim­ply unlik­able.  Even the crowd booed him repeat­edly.  If this were a real­ity show, Perry would be unan­i­mously voted off the island.

Rom­ney han­dled him­self well.  He clearly was pre­pared for the onslaught and called out Perry for his com­bat­ive behav­ior.  Rom­ney requited him­self well and con­tin­ued to show why he’s the real front-runner and likely GOP candidate.

Cain couldn’t defend his 9–9-9 pro­posal and had noth­ing else to offer.  His defenses on this and his recent and repeated wild state­ments were not con­vinc­ing.  He wanted to stay with sim­ple plat­i­tudes when being asked specifics.  He’s got a grow­ing elec­tabil­ity that is going to be is undoing.

Bach­mann was shrill, irri­tat­ing, and con­tin­ued her me-too theme she’s had through­out the campaign.

Even Paul seemed more shrill than usual last night.

Newt has found a niche as the con­scious of the party, jus­ti­fy­ing his pres­ence even if it makes him no more elec­table than before.

San­to­rum threw me off when he noted his 7 year old daugh­ter had some undis­closed surgery yes­ter­day and he chose to be in Las Vegas for the debate instead of at the hos­pi­tal with her.  His lack of fam­ily val­ues over his quixotic and irrel­e­vant cam­paign pres­ence was like a scar­let let­ter on his fore­head all evening.  Even if he was the fron­trun­ner, he should have been home with his daugh­ter as no sin­gle debate is make-or-break.

My con­clu­sions?  Ander­son, Rom­ney, and Newt won.  Perry absolutely and com­pletely lost it.  Cain, too.  The oth­ers really need to explain why they are still show­ing up.  And Hunts­man or John­son?  No one missed or men­tioned them.