GOP debate winners and losers

This is how I scored it. This first tier are candidates who I would enthusiastically vote for (at this point) and in order of preference (not in order of debate performance, but overall Chattering Teeth support). In parenthesis are the "under-card" debate participants (I watched them both). They all had solid debate performances last night IMO. Santorum and Jindal were both on fire at the early debate, but with a field of only four (and considering the other two pathetic participants) they had more oxygen to breath. Ted was brilliant, as usual, calling out obama as the world's leading financier of islamic terrorism. Cruz also in the short line of candidates supporting Republicans reclaiming the "power of the purse" and not preemptively surrendering to obama (as has been the case).  I loved Jindal's statement, and I'm paraphrasing, that we should just get rid of the Repulican party if they can't even defund Planned Parenthood at this point. I AGREE, BOBBY! As for Santorum, he invoked Reagan's Eleventh Commandment in admonishing Bobby's Trump-centric scorn, stating attacks on fellow Republicans only helps Hillary Clinton. I hope Santorum gains traction. I forget what Walker said (which might be a problem of his) but I like this dude cuz "he has done it."

Ted Cruz
(Rick Santorum)
Scott Walker
(Bobby Jindal)

This middle group is interesting to me. These folks are in my middle group because I question their conservatism and they have some work to do to convince me. I absolutely think Fiorina, Huckabee and Rubio knocked it out of the park last night. Trump didn't hurt his front-runner position, while Paul and Carson were uninspiring and dropping. Although I will say that Rand may have helped himself with the "dope smoker isolationist" niche. His best line came when he was called to weigh in on a Trump-Carson disagreement regarding vaccinations, and Rand says, "You mean you want a second opinion?" This was an obvious slight to Trump by disregarding his opinion as even counting, but then his answer seemed to align more with Trump's, which I found odd. I really liked Huckabee's refrain that we can't afford another person who "doesn't know what they don't know," and was powerful in his defense of Davis and the "criminalization of Christianity." Hmmm... I might need to consider moving Huckabee up a couple pegs...

Marco Rubio
Carly Fiorina
Mike Huckabee
Donald Trump
Ben Carson
Rand Paul

Candidates who have no chance of inspiring me to even bother to go to the polls. Christie was the clear winner of this group. I agreed with his substance and style, but unfortunately I have seen enough of him to know who he really is. I wonder if the backroom money establishment types will continue to stick with "The Jebster" after another luke warm performance. As for my bottom three of Pataki, Kasich and Graham - they should immediately concede, drop out and apologize for even running in the first place.

Chris Christie
Jeb Bush
(George Pataki)
(John Kasich)
(Lindsey Graham)

How did u see it?

UPDATE: Go to Z's place. There are a lot of smart people weighing in on this. I had to include my comment from there because I made myself laugh again.

Based purely on the question regarding what secret service name they would pick for themselves, I liked Ted’s answer of “Cohiba”. Winner of the under-card debate was Jindhal, when he stated we should just throw out the Republican party and start over if these yahoos can’t defund Planned Parenthood after those videos (I’m paraphrasing again). I LOVED that. Winner of the main event (based on poll bumps) was probably Carly. 

OH, I JUST REMEMBERED SOMETHING! Between the debates, CNN staged a phot with all the candidates from the kiddie table and the main debates. Jindhal was the only no show. I wonder if that was purposeful? Were it me, I would have wandered onto stage late, wearing an obama mask and holding a selfie stick.

I did find that plane in the background somewhat distracting.