There were lots of exciting developments in the race to win Florida’s GOP presidential primary Monday in Tampa Bay. Too bad there weren’t very many in last night’s debate at USF.
Unlike the last two debates in South Carolina that featured strong audience participation, the debate inside the College of the Arts building on the Tampa campus was a very sedate affair, which perhaps worked to tamp down some of Newt Gingrich’s verbal excesses. Those excesses, especially against the media, undoubtedly helped him win the South Carolina debate, and have now catapulted him to the lead in the Sunshine State in a new Public Policy Polling survey.
The 100-minute debate was aired on a broadcast television network, NBC, but even the inclusion of two veteran Florida political reporters, the Tampa Bay Times’ Adam C. Smith and National Journal’s Beth Reinhard, couldn’t move the excitement meter much.
Perhaps it was because the two candidates had spent the day trashing each other in different parts of Tampa, their live exchanges in the debate didn’t seem to hold as much drama.
This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2012.
