GOP debate: Giuliani seen as clear winner...and Duncan Hunter racks up some points as well

Here's an interesting shot - after the debate, it's Rudy & Romney who embrace one another, while McCain's the odd man out....

Last night's GOP debate in South Carolina ended up being much more focused than the last one.

Based on the scuttlebutt I'm hearing, Rudy Giuliani came off quite well, especially in a smackdown of Congressman Ron Paul, who suggested that the US was to blame for 9/11 and the answer was to `listen to the people who attacked us' and become isolationist.

Rudy, visibly angry(I'm sure he was visualizing some of the good friends he lost in the attack), said that of all the explanations he had heard for 9/11, this was one of the most ridiculous, and suggested that Paul withdraw the comments. Giuliani got the loudest, most sustained ovation of the night for that.

Rudy also scored by being straight foward on topics like abortion, taxes...and Islamic fascism.

Mitt Romney came across a bit more scattered and not as in command as he was during the first debate, although he made no major errors.

One big winner was one of my favorites, California's own Duncan Hunter,who's pithy,no nonsense demeanor got him a lot of attention:


On China Trade:

Q: Congressman Hunter, virtually all U.S. exporters want access to China's huge market. You have said that you would deal with the enormous trade deficit this country has with that country. Tell me how you'd do it and how fast.

REP. HUNTER: Yeah, very simple. China is cheating on trade. They devalue their currency by 40 percent.That undercuts the American markets, wipes American products off the shelf not only here but around the world. And the latest study I've seen shows that we've lost 1.8 million jobs in the United States, high-paying manufacturing jobs, to China, 27,000 jobs lost in South Carolina alone. I would enforce the law with China, the trade rules with China.

And the other thing I would do is, I would zero the manufacturing tax on American manufacturers. Our guys are down right now. They've been buffetted by these unfair trade practices. Let's bring back the American industrial base, and that's important for national security as well.

That means we'll be able to have -- you know, I sent out my teams a couple years ago when our guys were getting hurt by roadside bombs. We found only one company left in America that could still make high- grade armor steel plate. The arsenal of democracy is leaving these shores. We need to bring it back. I'll do that.

On Illegal immigration and the borders:


REP. HUNTER: I wrote the bill that the president signed in October that takes the San Diego fence 854 miles across Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and it's mandatory. I called up the other day, and they've done two miles of border fence.

This administration has a case of the slows on border enforcement (...)this 2,000-mile porous border, incidentally, is our biggest homeland security problem; it's not just an immigration problem, it's a homeland security problem. We need to build the border fence. We need to have a Border Patrol which is big enough to get the job done, and we need to be able to ask people when they want to come into America, knock on the front door, because the back door is going to be closed.

On interrogating terrorists:

Q: Here is the premise: Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned....How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?

REP. HUNTER: Yeah, let me just say this would take a one-minute conversation with the secretary of Defense. (Laughter.) I would call him up or call him in. I would say to SECDEF, in terms of getting information that would save American lives, even if it involves very high-pressure techniques, one sentence: Get the information. Have it back within an hour, and let's act on it. Let's execute with Special Operations or whoever else is necessary, and I will take full responsibility. Get the information.

It's pretty obvious that thus far, the field boils down to the Big Three, Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. And Duncan Hunter may just have entered prime time as well.