GOP CNN Debate in Vegas

6:01 - That was one of the dumbest intros I think I've ever seen. Picture Movie-Trailer Guy narrating. "In a world where political mudslinging is another day at the office..."

6:02 - What the freak is Michelle Bachmann wearing? She looks like the eager young ensign ready to prove to her admiral that women can be in the Navy too.

6:04 - Perry looks like he's puffing out his chest on purpose. Remember in junior high when kids would come out of the weight room and act like their muscles were so huge their arms couldn't go all the way down to their sides, and they'd have this little strut? Kinda like that.

6:06 - My Twitter feed is already hilarious. @daveweigel @murphymike @gaypatriot @publiusdb @pattonoswalt @albertbrooks @randytayler @gopTODD #cnndebate

6:07 - Rick Santorum is the first opening statement and h uses it to convey some personal messages. Surprised it doesn't end with a request for his wife to text him if he needs to pick up anything at the grocery store on the way home.

6:08 - Herman Cain's lighting is weird. It's like the color on my TV disappeared.

6:09 - Rick Perry introduces himself as an AUTHENTIC conservative. Yes, he apronounced it in all caps.

6:10 - I'm not going to recap everything said, just give my impressions as I watch. My impression is that Bachmann should not have opened with a "what happens in Vegas" joke.

6:11 - First question comes from the audience, looks like Toupee Kevin from The Office, asks about replacing federal income tax with federal sales tax. Anderson Cooper interprets that as a question about 999 and wants Bachmann to answer first. Bachmann calls herself and her husband "job creators" before slamming the 999 plan.

6:12 - Herman Cain wants folks to read his analysis before they give "knee-jerk" reaction to his 999 plan. And the color is much better on Cain. Santorum then says "Herman's well-meaning, but..." and then rips apart the 999 plan. "It's not good for families." Cain counters Santorum with "that's simply not true."

6:13 - Bachmann tries to walk us through levels of production to demonstrate how Cain's plan is a value-added tax but it doesn't really go anywhere.

6:14 - Perry: "Herman, I love you, brother..." and then 30 seconds later calls him "brother" again. Really? Well, at least he didn't call him "son."

6:16 - Cain says it's not correct to compare apples to oranges. Then he throws in bread in there.

6:17 - Anderson brings in Ron Paul, hey you called it dangerous. Paul goes on for a while, but I can't help but think he has the same optic effect Dennis Kucinich had in 2007. But older.

6:19 - Anderson just now brings in Romney. Romney tries to clarify the 999 plan as far as state tax is concerned. Cain keeps saying apples and oranges, and Romney says "Well, Nevada doesn't want to pay a whole bushel basket of state and federal taxes." He then emphasizes how the middle class needs help. I realize that the arguments between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats want to tax rich people and Republicans want to tax poor people.

6:21 - Newt has a great one-liner to open. Man, if only Newt didn't have such a crappy personal life.

6:23 - Bachmann says everyone needs to pay something. She also wants to abolish the tax code, then flatten it. So, yeah, she wants to raise taxes on poor people.

6:24 - Anderson asks Rick Perry a question about what he thinks of Mitt Romney's 59-point plan and I can picture Lie to Me's Tim Roth stopping him there and saying, "Did you that tic on his face? He hasn't read it." Perry gets in one last shot at 999, then talks about his jobs plan, which consists of drilling for more oil. And gets as animated as I've ever seen him illustrating energy independence.

6:26 - Romney's answering but CNN keeps including Perry in the picture, and Perry looks like he wants to kill Romney.

6:27 - Santorum says that's fine but points how poor western Europeans are more likely to be able to move into higher income brackets than Americans because the manufacturing base is gone. Then somehow he flips that to ObamaCare and says Romney has no credibility in repealing. Then Santorum interrupts him and talks over him, and Romney gets an extra 30 seconds from Anderson so he can actually answer. Which made Romney look strong and Santorum look like, to put it politely, a jerk.

6:31 - Anderson pulls Newt in to pile on RomneyCare. Newt presents an example from Boston to show RomneyCare's flaws but also says it's not fair to say it's the same as ObamaCare. Romney points out we got the idea for an individual mandate from "you and the Heritage foundation." Bachmann begs for time to interrupt Romney to slam ObamaCare.

6:34 - Anderson throws us to commercial. And honestly, this debate is quite entertaining.

6:38 - Anderson asks Paul about ObamaCare. He gets applause for saying people should be able to "opt out of government medicine."

6:40 - Cain talks about getting government out of healthcare.

6:41 - Perry: Texas has some of the finest health-care in the world. But then he brings up illegal immigration. Um, why would he do that? Ah, he says Mitt hired illegals in his home and that is the HEIGHT of hypocrisy. Mitt can't help but laugh. Mitt starts to answer but Rick interrupts. Mitt actually puts his hand on Rick's shoulder to calm him down, and Mitt finally has to say "Anderson, Anderson, what are the debate rules here?"

So it's as though the candidates got together and said "The only way to beat Mitt Romney is to boldly attack him and then not let him answer. Meanwhile Mitt's shown that he's learned from the McCain/Huck/Rudy gang-beatdowns from 2007.

6:43 - Mitt points out Texas has increased 60% in illegal immigration. Rick then brings back that illegals worked on his property. Rick seriously looks pissed. He interrupts Mitt again. Mitt smacks him down. The crowd's loving it.

6:45 - Anderson points out Cain's "joke" about the border fence being electrified.

6:48 - Wow, First Officer Bachmann just said Obama's aunt and uncle are here in the US illegally and she'd deport them. She then says she wants a fence across the entire border. She will "enforce" English as official language of US.

6:49 - Perry, "by the time that fence gets built, there's a lot better way..." There's a split-screen with Perry and Bachmann. Perry's looking at Bachmann, and Bachmann's looking at the pretty lights.

6:50 - Romney slams Perry again on illegal immigration. Perry accuses Mitt of being #1 in job magnets for illegals. Audience boos; they're not buying it. Mitt even gets in a "sounds like the audience agrees with me.:

6:51 - Question from the audience. A Latino man who points out there are plenty of Latinos in this country and most of them did not come here illegally; what's the GOP going to do for us? Anderson throws it to Newt with the preface that Obama got 67% of the Latino vote in 2008. Newt gives a magnanimous answer that'd shoot anyone else up in the polls. But it's Newt.

6:53 - Paul says we put people in groups too much.

6:55 - Cain says what'll appeal to all ethnic groups is his bold plan to boost the economy.

6:56 - Anderson asks Perry if he'd get rid of the 14th Amendment. (He asked Cain but Cain didn't answer.) Perry doesn't want to answer either; he wants to talk about increases in oil drilling and coal mining to boost the economy. Then Anderson asks again if Perry would repeal the 14th Amendment and he says no. AC swings it to Bachmann and she says "Anchor baby."

6:58 - What will Santorum do for Latinos? "Family, faith, values..." He'll prevent the erosion of marriage and family. "Look, I'm for jobs too."

7:00 - Paul mentions bringing troops home from Afghanistan, and the audience is thrilled.

7:02 - Newt & Paul debate where to put nuclear waste. Mitt comes down on Paul's side.

7:04 - Perry agrees with Mitt & Paul, as though someone slipped him a message that he needs to agree with someone on something STAT!

7:06 - Santorum tries to slam Perry, Romney and Cain for supporting TARP.

7:08 - Bachmann boasts of talking to "moms" across this country losing their "nests." "Hold on, moms, it's not too late!"

7:09 - Anderson now asks about OccupyWallStreet. Cain says OWS shouldn't be in front of Wall Street; they should be in front of the White House. Loud applause for Cain in standing by his statement that if you're unemployed you should blame yourself. These GOP crowds cheer the worst things sometimes. Boo the gay soldier, cheer Perry's executing 200 people, shouting "yes" to let an uninsured man die.

7:10 - Paul says Cain's blaming the victims. Paul on the bail-outs: "If you had to give money out, you should have given it to the people losing their homes, not the banks." Paul's strongest moment of the night.

7:14 - Commercial!

7:19 - Anderson asks Santorum about religion being an issue, specifically about Mormonism being a cult. Crowd boos. Santorum: "Pay attention to candidate's values." Applause. He points out he's a Catholic. AC throws it to Newt. "Does faith matter? Absolutely."

7:22 - AC asks Perry if he'll repudiate the pastor's comments. Perry dances around that but gets to freedom of religion. And people are free to express their opinion. "I didn't agree with it, Mitt."

7:23 - Mitt points out the pastor said we should choose who we vote for based on religion, which is against what the founders would want.

7:25 - Bachmann gets a foreign policy question, and she's terrified of "genocidal maniac" running Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

7:26 - Newt slams both parties for their foreign policy stupidity. "I'm a hawk, but I'm a cheap hawk." Laughs and applause.

7:28 - Cain's weakest when talking about foreign policy, like he just started learning about foreign policy a couple months ago. But he knows we need to be friends with Israel.

7:32 - Paul pleads with his fellow candidates to "Cut something!" Be specific!

7:34 - Rick Perry wants to defund the United Nations. Huh.

7:35 - Mitt Romney wants China to pick up more of the international humanitarian-aid slack around the world. And then he rattles off five things he'd cut to Paul. Paul says cutting foreign aid should be the easiest thing to cut. AC says "Even Israel?" "I'd treat all countries equally." Paul says foreign aid is taking money from poor Americans to give to rich people in poor countries, uses Egypt as example.

7:36 - Bachmann says no, don't cut foreign aid to Israel!

7:38 - Cain likes Reagan's foreign policy of "Peace through strength."

7:39 - Paul asks everyone else if they're willing to condemn Reagan for Iran-Contra. Santorum tries to defend it, but Newt points out Reagan himself said it was a terrible mistake.

7:45 - AC asks the room to applaud if they think Romney can beat Obama. Some applause. AC then says to Santorum he's polling at 1%, why does he think he can win? Santorum points out he's the only one who can win in a swing state (Pennsylvania). Um, Rick, you got killed in your last re-election bid. Says Perry ran as a Democrat, Romney ran as a liberal, and that Santorum ran as a conservative and beat "James Carville and Paul Begala."

7:46 - Romney points out the people want to nominate someone who can beat Obama and fix the economy, deflates Santorum. Perry then takes the opportunity to point out Massachusetts had slow job growth. Romney ties Perry into a pretzel and spits him out. Perry tries to counter with "You were a failure as governor" and the crowd boos. Perry keeps forgetting they're in Nevada, not Texas.

7:49 - AC asks Cain if Romney or Perry should be president, and Cain says "No I should be" but Cain's warmer to Romney than Perry.

7:51 - AC says we're out of time, and Newt and Bachmann whine. Bachmann says "The cake is baked and Barack Obama will be a one-term president!" Bachmann drops Reagan's name, then Newt says "Maximizing bickering is not the road to the White House" and gets in his obligatory slam of the media.

7:53 - AC summarizes for us, and we get a shot of one of Mitt Romney's sons shaking Cain's hand.

So how'd they do?

7. MICHELLE BACHMANN - Shrill, whiny, and pro-raising taxes on the poor. Um, yeah. Man, that Ames straw poll was a million years ago, wasn't it?

6. RICK SANTORUM - He can draw blood, but he does not do himself any favors. Giant jerk. He can only weaken opponents; he cannot lift himself up.

5. RON PAUL - He's willing to take positions that no one else will, even though there are Republicans who agree with him. And while it may help him win straw polls, I haven't seen evidence it'll translate into caucus and primary wins.

4. RICK PERRY - He was more animated than he's ever been, but it looked like Romney really got under his skin, like Rick's next plan is to get the rest of Cobra Kai together to jump Romney-san in the parking lot. Perry got the most boos tonight, but that doesn't mean he didn't play well with southern voters. I just think Perry safely eliminated himself from winning Nevada or New Hampshire.

3. HERMAN CAIN - He got piled on for his 999 plan, which is looking weaker by the day. But he's so darn likeable! He defends his plan with gusto, and to his credit, at least he has a plan. It's just one that won't work. I don't see him staying up top much longer.

2. NEWT GINGRICH - The peacemaker. If Jon Huntsman had Newt's ideas and style in debates, he'd be a co-top-tier candidate. But he's Newt freaking Gingrich, the guy who was having an affair while slamming Clinton for the Lewinsky scandal, the guy who left his ailing second wife to hook up with his third.

1. MITT ROMNEY - He was ganged up on a bit there, and yet he emerged from him it, not unscathed, but he didn't lose. He still won. He looks like he's already positioning his campaign to a general-election campaign. He pushed back against the rudeness of the twin Ricks and looked like the better man after the dust settled.