Jacksonville Debate: Two Winners, One Loser

◼ link - Guy Benson/Townhall

We had two winners tonight: From a 'micro' perspective, Rick Santorum was terrific and narrowly won the evening. On a macro level, Mitt Romney came awfully close to winning the debate outright, and just owned Newt Gingrich during three dramatic exchanges. Because Newt didn't have a particularly strong showing, the political inertia stays in Romney's favor heading into Tuesday.

◼ Ron Paul calls for diplomatic relations with Cuba - Alana Semuels/LA Times
◼ Analysis: Mitt Romney Wins Florida Debate, Newt Gingrich Looks Rattled And - Amy Walter and Michael Falcone/ABC News
◼ Gingrich hints at making Marco Rubio VP - CBS
◼ Newt pulls punches in Fla. - Alexander Burns/Politico
◼ No knockout in GOP’s last Florida debate - Miami Herald

CNN Florida debate: Six things to watch for

◼ Here are six things to look for tonight. - Tony Lee/Human Events

1. Crowd noise
2. Hispanic issues
3. Will Romney act like a front-runner again?
4. Will Gingrich revert back to the punchy underdog?
5. Santorum and Paul
6. Fast and the Furious and Solyndra

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CNN LIVE: Tune in TONIGHT - Thursday at 8 p.m. ET for the CNN/Republican Party of Florida Debate hosted by Wolf Blitzer and follow it on Twitter at #CNNDebate. For real-time coverage of the Florida primary, go to CNNPolitics.com or to the CNN apps or CNN mobile web site.

Surging Newt Gingrich draws fire from rivals in GOP debate

◼ In a potentially pivotal GOP presidential debate, Newt Gingrich repeatedly found himself on the defensive Monday night - LA Times

Romney, reeling from a double-digit loss to Gingrich two days earlier in South Carolina, improved on his halting performances in recent debates but didn’t land a knockout blow.

Gingrich, who brought debate crowds to their feet last week, was restrained and passed up several opportunities to attack Romney. He also avoided his past attacks on the news media and, with an eye toward the more moderate electorate in next Tuesday’s Florida primary, muted his strident populist rhetoric.

FULL NBC GOP Debate Tampa Florida January 23 2012

High stakes at tonight’s NBC/National Journal/Tampa Bay Times debate, especially for Romney and Gingrich

#FLDebate airs beginning at 6:00 pm PT on NBC, moderated by NBC’s Brian Williams

◼ Live Blog Transcript: GOP Florida Debate on NBC – January 23rd, 2012 at 9pm EST/8pm CST - HillBuzz

How to Watch: Livestream can be found here. Note: NBC has one of the worst track records in providing a reliable Internet stream to watch these debates. I can’t recall a single time they’ve hosted one where the stream worked properly. So cross your fingers.

Alternate streams: National Journal or TampaBay.com

◼ Follow us live from the USF debate
If you would like to be part of the conversation, tweet your debate feedback to @PoliticsTBTimes
or leave a comment on the Times Facebook page.

◼ TAMPA, FLORIDA NBC DEBATE - The Other McCain
◼ Florida Debate Open Thread - Michelle Malkin
◼ Live Thread: NBC Republican Debate… - Weasel Zippers
◼ Open thread: The nastiest debate yet? - HotAir

PPP’s first post-South Carolina poll in Florida finds Newt Gingrich with a small lead. He’s at 38% to 33% for Mitt Romney, 13% for Rick Santorum, and 10% for Ron Paul…

If Rick Santorum drops out between now and next Tuesday, Gingrich will be the beneficiary. His voters prefer Gingrich over Romney 50-23, and in a field where he’s no longer a candidate Newt’s lead expands to 43-36…

Newt is drawing out new voters. With the 11% of the electorate that didn’t vote in the 2008 primary, he leads 40-30. Meanwhile Romney is having trouble holding onto the folks who voted for him in 2008. 37% are supporting someone else this time, with 19% of them moving toward Gingrich. This was a big problem for Romney in Iowa as well- if he could just hold onto the folks who supported him last time he’d be winning easily. But he doesn’t inspire a passionate enough following to keep folks in the fold

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◼ link - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion
◼ Liveblogging the NBC Tampa Debate - Ace of Spades