. . . over John King. Sure it was an effective moment, but this isn’t the first time Gingrich has scored easy points on the help. I have as many problems with CNN as the next guy, and in the early debates when Gingrich was challenging the premise of questions I found it refreshing. But at a certain point it’s like being a jerk to your waiter.
That said, I do think Gingrich delivered, once again, the best performance, but I also think he needed a haymaker on Romney and didn’t get it. Romney kept it close, besides five awkward minutes on his taxes (the first five minutes: when Romney was talking about how he didn’t take money from his dad or go into the family business, but instead struck out on his own — well that was effective). The line about Gingrich being mentioned only once in the Reagan diaries was a cute, effective, and not totally fair bit of oppo.
Santorum was strong, especially on immigration and life. He’s sort of expanding in skill to occupy the vacuum left by the dropouts. I have to think this redounds to Romney’s benefit.