The Fox News Republican Debate 9-5-07.

Join me and fellow commenters over at Hot Air as we liveblog the Republican Debate on Fox 9-5-07.

LINK IS HERE.

My impressions:

Tancredo & McCain performed well.  On a purely performance level, I place them at the top.  Mostly, this is because neither had any major stumbles and I would guess a little less face time than Mitt & Rudy.

Mitt & Rudy both had minor stumbles but nothing major.  Rudy reminded us he was the Mayor of New York again and again and again.  Mitt starts to look slicker and slicker to me all the time but I don’t completely dislike him.

I think Huckabee made the most mistakes.  He made some points arguing with Paul although I think that fighting with the loon only reduces your own credibility.  Saying that we “broke Iraq” was a huge boo boo in my eyes.  He was my favorite going in.  Now, not so much.  He was never a contender anyway.

Hunter & Brownback had only one way to go, up.  They might have made up a tiny amount of ground here but not enough to matter.

Ron Paul takes his libertarian values too far.  Most conservatives agree in theory with most of what he says.  The problem is he is not realistic.  He lives in a dreamworld.  On one hand he is abolishing the CIA, on the other hand is using intelligence to fight a war without soldiers.  Take it down a notch, Ron.

Overall, I think the debate was awesome.  It was really hard hitting and exposed a lot of each candidates weaknesses.  Rudy was asked about his personal life.  Romney was put on the spot about his comments about comparing his kids to soldiers in the field.  McCain was asked about immigration and his stances on torture.  All in all, it was a great debate.  The moderators were excellent and Chris Wallace was a standout in every way.