From the Archives…

I know, I know. I'm late to the debate commentary party. By blogosphere standards, I might as well be writing this post a month from now. But I have to say that I'm having trouble getting excited about these things. I'm not in the Fred "I'd Rather Be On Leno" Thompson camp, but the debates are getting extremely repetitive.

Here's the pattern: Rudy does very well (he shines in these formats), Huckabee has a memorable moment or two, and our guy always delivers a performance that seems to play better with the watching public than it does with the pundits. As for McCain, he's up and down. Strong on the war (no one's better, really) and weak most everywhere else. If the debate focuses largely on Iraq, McCain rises, when the issues turn domestic, McCain sinks. I still think that no one does better across the entire spectrum of issues than the Governor.

This debate seemed to follow the now-familiar pattern quite closely.

I have been getting some interesting e-mail, and I'll post that later, but for now I'd say that the debate did not alter the dynamic of the race in the slightest bit.