My live-blog is here. First reax round-up here. Chait says Romney is a better actor:
You can see why Mitt Romney wants to stop having these debates. He’s better at them than Rick Santorum, which means that he can more effectively portray himself as a knee-jerk reactionary consumed with hatred of liberals, unions and President Obama. (Santorum is much more authentically reactionary, but that doesn’t matter – after all, Sylvester Stallone is better on screen than Mike Tyson at portraying an intimidating boxer.) And Romney understands that he needs to stop broadcasting this image of himself into America’s living rooms.
Tomasky thought Santorum lost:
Santorum, I think, needed to come out of this debate a clear winner, and he didn’t. This has happened to him before. Every time he’s right on the cusp of breaking out and really has a chance to establish himself as the one to beat, he just can’t quite do it.
So did Medved:
The good news for the former senator is that he didn’t come across as crazy; the bad news is that he seemed utterly conventional—which may hurt his candidacy even more. The debate won’t lead prospective Santorum voters to switch to Romney (or Paul or Gingrich) but it may leave many of them shrugging and disillusioned, stricken with the deflated enthusiasm that depresses the turnout for their imperfect champion.
Bernstein believes that Republican voters lost:
Republican voters and conservatives are losers because there are certainly strong arguments — mainstream conservative arguments — against President Obama’s policies, whether it’s on national security or the budget or health care or any other issue. But they’re not hearing any of it; they’re hearing third-rate slogans, misleading rhetoric and outright mistruths that would fit right in among the cheaper booths at a conservative convention.
Friedersdorf has given up on declaring winners and losers:
Journalists who've watched all these debates can't grok the mindset of an undecided voter who just started paying attention. Trust me, I tried my hardest. But on health care, we've heard Mitt Romney defend his Massachusetts bill on countless occasions. Hearing it again was like getting through the first level of a familiar video game. Familiar stuff happened. Then resident Lakitu Ron Paul reappeared to toss out his spiky bits of chaos. In what followed we didn't learn anything new about the candidates, or the horse race. What did Michiganders take from the evening? Who knows?
Alex Koppelman suspects that Paul and Romney deliberately teamed up on Santorum:
[I]f this debate slows Santorum’s momentum, or helps Romney slow him, then Romney will have a lot of reason to be grateful to Ron Paul. The only question that remains is how Romney might show his gratitude.
Weigel has more on the subject:
[W]hen asked [in the spin room] why Ron Paul seemed to be on Mitt Romney's side, Santorum snarked: "You have to ask Congressman Paul and Governor Romney what they have going on together." There was immediate agreement: Santorum was protesting too much. But he was right! After the debate ended, the Paul campaign shot out a donor letter attacking one candidate. "So can Ron Paul count on you to make a generous contribution to help get the truth about Rick Santorum out to the voters and to make sure we have the resources to run a full-scale GOTV program on Super Tuesday?" asked John Tate, Paul's campaign manager
Beinart applauds Paul for asking why his opponents don't call for a congressional declaration of war against Iran:
Right now the polling shows: 1. That most Americans support a strike on Iran (presumably to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon) and 2. That most Americans think Iran already has a nuclear weapon. Which is to say, most Americans don’t know what they’re talking about. A congressional debate might help people pay closer attention and, perhaps, think a little harder about the potential consequences of a third American war in the Muslim world.
Amy Davidson was struck by all the booing:
An extended squabble about earmarks was punctuated by boos that seemed almost randomly placed, less expressions of ideology than loud, baffled question marks. At one point, Romney, interrupted by a boo, threw up his hands in what seemed like genuine confusion: Hadn’t those people been berating Santorum thirty seconds earlier? They had; Santorum’s disorganized earmark answer—he attacked, defended, and, perhaps most fatally, tried to explain the legislative mechanism involved—was one of several with which he lost this debate, squandering his recent momentum. But that didn’t translate into a real victory, let alone love, for Romney.
And Kevin Drum can't decide whether or not he should hope for a Santorum victory:
[I]t's hard not to feel that America really needs a long, hard look into the id of the Republican Party, and then needs to decide if that's where it wants to go. Santorum, even if he has no other redeeming features, at least provides us with that.
The Dish 