Newt Gingrich had what will be the most talked about moment on the first question of tonight’s South Carolina debate, when he brutally smacked down CNN moderator John King for asking him about his ex-wife saying in an interview that he wanted an open marriage. Gingrich eventually said the charge was false, but most of his answer was spent scolding King for asking the question at a presidential debate, which he called “despicable.” The crowd broke out in a standing ovation, and it may have neutralized what could have been a damaging issue for him heading into Saturday’s primary.
But other than that, it was Rick Santorum who dominated the debate — taking both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney to task. He skewered Romney’s Massachusetts health care law and Gingrich for supporting the individual mandate. He went after Gingrich for being an unreliable leader. And he attacked Romney’s record on abortion and argued that Gingrich pushed to sideline social issues behind the scenes.
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For Romney, it was his worst debate performance yet. Not only was he on the ropes on health care, but he struggled to come up with an answer to the issue that’s been dogging him all week — why he hasn’t released his tax returns. Romney said he didn’t want to release it in pieces so Democrats could attack it. He said he’d reveal them in April, but said, “I don’t know how many years I’ll release.” This triggered boos in the audience. He declared that he wasn’t going to apologize for his success, which makes it confounding that he wouldn’t just release his returns and get it over with. Not releasing them just makes people suspicious that somehow he must be hiding something big. And Gingrich, who released his 2010 returns during the debate, made a strong point that he should release them now so Republican primary voters know whether there’s anything in them that could be a liability in the general election.
The big question, of course, is how does this all effect the race in South Carolina? There’s so many moving parts and late breaking developments that I’m not sure how reliable any polls will be going into Saturday. The easiest assumption to make is that Gingrich has the momentum and is now in a strong position to win the state and that Santorum’s strong debate came too little to late. But there’s also the chance that Santorum can get a boost from the debate and eat into some of Gingrich’s support, giving Romney the victory. Yet on the other hand, is there an outside chance that a strong enough Santorum surge could sink Romney to third? I highly doubt it, but the way this race has been going, I’m not sure we can totally rule it out of bounds.
