GOP debate slugfest: Did Romney hit hard enough? - CBS News

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Mitt Romney may not drink, but he was loaded when he entered last night's debate in Jacksonville, Fla. He went after Newt Gingrich immediately and relentlessly. He scolded him, rendered him momentarily mute, and took answers about other topics and turned them into attacks on Gingrich on key issues like excessive government spending. Romney didn't just have good answers, he looked like a man in command of himself. His new debate coach Brett O'Donnell should double his fees.

There are now five days until the Florida primary, and state polls show that Romney and Gingrich are neck and neck. Newt Gingrich is up 9 points over Romney in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. Romney's strong performance will give him a little spring in his step and make his supporters feel like they're backing a winner again. Florida has 10 television markets, and if the editors and producers are good to Romney, he'll get about 12 hours of free coverage of the debate.

Romney was not flawless, but he showed aptitude over a wide range of subjects, learned new material, and adapted to the challenges he faces. For a candidate that has been called robotic he was nimble.

Romney started right away. If a candidate can deliver a strong moment that will run throughout the next day on cable and on local news, he wins the night. You just have to be good once, and preferably early in the evening. Romney had to know that Gingrich's claim that Romney was "anti-immigrant" would come up, and it came up early. He took offense and then took a hairbrush to Gingrich's bottom. He said the attack was "repulsive," called on Gingrich to apologize for the "kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has characterized American politics for too long."

Gingrich, inexplicably continued to defend the sentiment behind the "anti-immigrant" ad that he pulled down and that Sen. Marco Rubio had criticized. It gave Romney a chance to look indignant. This provides us with a quirk of political theater: Romney, who is authentically stiff and robotic in his natural state, looked "authentic" in what was no doubt a staged moment.

Romney also finally gave his best defense yet of his taxes. After Gingrich dared him to explain his Swiss bank account, Romney launched into a riff he'd clearly tried out a few times in front of the mirror. "I think it's important for people to make sure that we don't castigate individuals who have been successful. Let's put behind us this idea of attacking me because of my money."

He was in Gingrich's face all night. He criticized Gingrich for his ambitious plans to colonize the moon. "If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I'd say, 'You're fired.' (Remember just a few weeks ago when Romney couldn't say the word fired? That's OK it was Newt he was firing.) "At another time he kneed Gingrich for pandering to local politicians, offering a new project in every state he visited. "This idea of going state to state and promising what people want to hear, promising billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to make people happy, that's what got us into the trouble we're in now. We've got to say no to this kind of spending."

During an exchange over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Gingrich offered a blustery attack on Romney's investments in the two companies. Romney pointed out that Gingrich had identical investments. "Right," was all Gingrich could say, as if being guilty of the charge he had just leveled at Romney were totally natural.

The pressure was so relentless that Gingrich, one of the great exaggerators in politics, was accusing Romney of using that tactic. I assume in the Romney debate camp they took it as a compliment.

It was not a universally good night for Romney, though. He denied that he was running an ad that his campaign was, in fact, running. In the radio ad, he accuses Gingrich of calling Spanish a "ghetto language." When Wolf Blitzer pointed out that Romney had actually said at the end of the ad "I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message," Romney mumbled. For the audience at home it was probably confusing, but Romney looked like he was weaseling, not owning up to his words. He also sounded like he was ducking when talking about how his investments are in a blind trust he doesn't control. True, perhaps (though some accounts he does see), but it doesn't sound good. When Romney in response to Santorum's passionate critique of his health care plan said, "It's not worth getting angry about," you could hear those conservatives who have doubts about him say ... and that's our problem with you.

Newt Gingrich had a floppy night. It wasn't because the audience was prohibited from cheering. They just didn't cheer much for him. He didn't seem to have a game plan. Backed into a corner at one point, he said smugly to Romney, "I'll give you an opportunity to self-destruct." It didn't work.

He was even the least effective attacker of the media. He had to follow on after Rick Santorum had interrupted the bickering of the front-runners to call for a return to the issues. Gingrich tried to echo him, arguing that it was OK to attack Romney for his tax returns in a TV interview but "nonsense" to try to get him to talk about it during the debate--a theory that is itself nonsense. Moderator Wolf Blitzer stood his ground. For a man who has profited from the debates and promises to whup Obama in the debates, to shrink from repeating onstage what he says in interviews was confusing and weak.

Rick Santorum had another strong night. If you were judging in a vacuum, you could make the case that he had the best performance. He repeated his claim that he was the best person to debate health care reform with Barack Obama because he had not flirted with the individual mandate. "Folks, we can't give this issue away in this election. Those are not the clear contrasts we need if we are going to beat Barack Obama." Santorum's problem is that he doesn't have the money to run ads in the state and his debate performance, while strong, won't be enough to start a brushfire.

Ron Paul has been increasingly impish in the last few debates. Tonight he was piercing and funny. He had a quip for everything. What would you do if Fidel Castro called, he was asked. "I'd talk to him," he said, not joining the other Republican candidates in pre-assigning Castro to different kinds of hell. In discussing the possibility of exploring the moon, he suggested sending some politicians there.

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Accept the euro unit may not be enough to markets - New York Times to meet

PARIS - the leader of the France and Germany on Tuesday promised concrete steps towards a closer political and economic Union of 17 countries which use the euro, but it is unclear whether their proposals would be enough, or fast enough to meet markets worried about debt and listless economies of Europe.

In view of the uncertainty, indexes in the United Kingdom and Germany in the afternoon, but French and Italian shares with modest gains were mixed European stock markets on Wednesday, down. The answer seemed to show that the two leading announcement had initially failed as a market to facilitate nervousness.

"To the new policy to solve the immediate debt problems, it was little new," analysts at Nomura said Wednesday in a note.

Balanced budgets and debt reduction, a degree of discipline far beyond the current anchor President Nicolas Sarkozy called France and German Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany for each nation in the euro area to a 'golden rule' in their national constitutions in the direction often broken commitment to work.

She promised, press for a new tax on financial transactions and for regular Summit of the zone members under the leadership of Herman van Rompuy, who all 27 European Nations heads the Council.

Mr Sarkozy said "We certainly greater economic integration in the euro area are heading,".

The long-awaited meeting in the Élysée Palace here produces little that would seem to suppress the nerves of the bond traders, who have become increasingly concerned that the economic slowdown in Germany and France make it more difficult for Europe's debt crisis to overcome.

Excluded, that both leaders issuing collective bonds, known as Eurobonds, to share responsibility in the Member States for public debt and against a further increase in the a bailout Fund be placed until the end of September at the earliest in place.

Frau Merkel repeated, that there "no wand" to solve the problems of the euro, argue that she improved with the passage of time budget discipline, competitiveness and economic growth among weaker States must be met.

The stronger members of the eurozone have deadlock. According to official data released Tuesday showed that growth in the area of the lowest in two years in the second quarter and that fell Germany-, the continent of the locomotive - came almost to a standstill by 0.1 percent.

The German figures followed data show that the French economy was flat in the second quarter stagnant leave Europe's two largest economies. This means that the two pillars of the European economy may be less willing and able to support, warned weaker counterparts, analysts.

In the euro area, gross domestic product rose only 0.2 percent in the second quarter from the first, when growth had expanded by 0.8 percent, according to Eurostat, statistics of the European Union Agency.

The common Franco-German proposals were so modest as German officials had predicted. And the most ambitious idea, that all States of the eurozone is to legally to bind balanced budgets and reduced sovereign debt - is unlikely to be accepted by all Member States. It can get even by the French constitutional process because Mr Sarkozy has no a constitutional majority in Parliament.

The proposal calls for bi-annual meetings and greater integration of the "two-speed Europe" reform could - from those in the euro area and outside it - that many warned if the European Union expanded so quickly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Both leaders said that France and Germany must set a good example, citing their agreement together until 2013 as an "example of convergence" in the entire euro area needed propose a financial transactions tax. But such a tax is unlikely, that in the larger European Union, especially when Great Britain, which includes outside the euro area to resist largest financial centre in Europe, continue to the idea.

They also said she would work to French and German economic evaluations to harmonise and into the future, corporate tax rates.

"France and Germany committed to strengthen the euro," said Frau Merkel. "For this purpose we our economies better must integrate" and "to see that on the stability pact will be traded."

The stability pact, a key element of the Treaty that established the euro zone, seat to keep obliged Member budget deficits to 3 percent of gross domestic product a year and a sovereign debt below 60 percent of the G.D.P. both benchmarks are regularly missed.

Steven Erlanger reports from Paris and Jack Ewing from Frankfurt.

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