The headlines coming out of Wednesday night's CNN GOP debate from Mesa, Arizona say Rick Santorum failed in his first time in the klieg lights — and to an extent that was definitely true.
But I would argue that, in more than any other debate, Barack Obama received a boost from the two-hour proceedings.
One highlight: Ron Paul not backing down when asked about the ad he's running that calls Rick Santorum a fake:
A key moment that nobody is talking about in the aftermath this morning is when moderator John King asked about birth control — though after he heard boos from the pro-Romney crowd, he asked it in an apologetic fashion, prefacing it with "We're not going to spend a lot of time on this but…"
Did the candidates believe in birth control? Since Rick Santorum has been going around saying he doesn't really, and since Mitt Romney has been silent on the issue, it was a damned relevant question. But instead, none answered the question directly, instead bemoaning President Obama's initial decision to have Catholic-run non-church facilities pay for contraception for their employees. "Unbelievable," Romney called it.
Santorum refused to answer the question, instead pivoting to children "being raised by children."
This article appears in Feb 23-29, 2012.