It's basically McCain (and everyone) versus Romney. At the beginning, it was McCain accusing Romney of misrepresenting his plan. And then accusing him again. And again. And again. In each exchange, Romney would offer an increasingly sophisticated and full recitation of McCain's plan, which McCain, at some point, stopped disputing, and simply kept attacking Romney for being untruthful, though he stopped explaining what, exactly, was a lie. But for once in the night, Romney was being truthful. It was a fully accurate description of McCain's plan, which would offer legal status in return for good behavior, fulfilling certain qualifications, undertaking various assimilation efforts, and paying a penalty. McCain, for his part, kept not quite denying the reality of this, but accusing Romney of being dishonest. That's an accurate charge, but in this case, McCain was using it to obscure a truthful description of a plan he'd championed, and is now attempting to disown. There's no glory on that stage tonight. McCain's talk is crooked, and he's vicious towards Romney ("We agree on one thing,: Governor Romney is the candidate of 'change.'"). In fact, everyone hates Mitt Romney, and every zinger has been aimed at him. Huckabee sounds good, offers incoherent policy ideas, and never gets called on it because he's a friendly face to virtually all the candidates. Thompson is actually relatively honest and interesting, but obviously checked out of the campaign, and, like a guy walking the end of a marathon finishing the race because he said he would. And the less said about Giuliani the better. At least Paul is providing some entertainment.
