Matthew Continetti predicted earlier today that tonight’s debate could be “Michele’s Moment.” He may well prove to be right.

Bachmann’s strong performance tonight may be the beginning of a process where she begins to separate herself from her two current competitors for fourth place, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum. Perry claimed near the beginning of the debate to want to be Tim Tebow, then did nothing to engineer a comeback the rest of the night. Santorum, it seemed to me, never really broke through. If enough Iowans were watching, and if they agree that Michele was impressively tough and convincingly true-blue conservative, I suspect we could see a Bachmann surge in the remaining two and a half weeks—perhaps enough of one to push her into the first tier.