Who Won the First GOP Presidential Debate?


Written on May 6, 2011 by Ann-Marie Murrell


Tonight, South Carolina hosted the first of the Republican Presidential debates. To be perfectly honest, this type of early debate makes me feel a little queasy; a bit helpless. Who ARE these people threatening to run? Is it going to end up like last time, when suddenly everyone had scattered and we were left with John McCain?

2012 is going to be the most important presidential election maybe in the history of America. We have to find a very strong person who has the ability to unify a somewhat split party. I’m not sure if ‘he’ was there tonight, but it was definitely an interesting beginning.

Just like the CPAC convention, the debate audience seemed to be filled with lots of uber-Libertarian Ron Paul supporters. Throughout the evening, no matter what Paul said or how he said it (and he said some pretty whacky things), his people would whoop and holler as if he were a rock star.

I not only watched the entire thing, I also transcribed it. Every 6,000-something words of it. (Not the most fun Thursday night I’ve ever had, for sure.) I wanted to be able to read and re-read everything they’d said—away from the commentators and the Ron Paul ‘woo-hooers’—in order to at least try to determine which of the first 5 in the ring (if any) were for me.

If I could sum up the debate in one word, it would be, “Eh.â€