Overnight Debate Thoughts

After reading the reviews of last night's YouTube debate across the spectrum, here are some quick bullet points:

• Conservatives are none too happy about the selection of the questions. The guy who asked one of the "gay" questions turned out to be a Hillary Clinton backer. Ouch, CNN. As a writer at National Review put it, "It's a YouTube debate, but CNN doesn't know how to Google?" More fodder for the liberal media charge. Sigh.
• Huckabee seemed to have a big night, most of the chattering class agreed. But why didn't his opponents go after him more? And shouldn't he be getting tougher questions by now about his Arkansas record? Or are they still not taking him seriously?
• Spanning the blogosphere and morning papers, John McCain seemed to come in a close second for his sobriety and "presidential" answers.
• Giuliani, who I thought did ok, received some harsher reviews from the pundits. Some thought Romney got the best of him in the immigration squabble. Others thought he was caught off balance on guns and abortion.
• Romney, who I thought looked a bit rattled at times, got better reviews from conservative thoroughbreds like Bill Bennett and Kate O'Beirne. Others thought his performance was uneven. The best thing for Giuliani out of this is that Romney didn't win the debate.
• One of my Republican buddies called to ask me afterwards, "Will Fred Thompson even be remembered as part of this election when it's all over?"