It was less than five minutes into the GOP YouTube Debate in Florida for Rudy Giuliani to begin personal attacks on Mitt Romney.  As soon as they began discussing Giuliani’s efforts to make and keep New York a sanctuary city, the former mayor started dishing out insults and refused to acknowledge substance to Romney’s position.

The mayor accused Romney of doing nothing about sanctuary cities in his state during his term as govenor.  That said, he immediately began firing out quips about how Romney had illegal immigrants doing yard work.  At his mansion.  (Isn’t class envy supposed to be the Democrat’s game?)  Giuliani went so far as to dub Romney’s home a “sanctuary mansion.”

Romney’s response was calm, rational and completely ignored by Giuliani who was far too amused by his own wittiness to actually deal with the issue.  Romney repeatedly asked if it was acceptable to single out workers, working for a company hired by an individual, who looked or spoke differently from oneself and demand they prove their legal status to work in the United States.  He characterized this thinking as un-American.  (Giuliani was too busy trying to catch his breath from laughing so hard at his own jokes to notice that he sounded a little biggoted and racist on this issue.)

The implication was not lost on voters, however.  During the commercial breaks, CNN.com offered highlights and viewer commentary on the debate.  The first comment addressed Romney’s point and agreed that to suggest we aggressively demand proof of legal status from anyone who works for the businesses we patronize smacked of intollerance.

Meanwhile, Fred Thompson had the only ad that focused soley on the weaknesses of fellow Republican candidates.  (Each candidate submitted a 30 second spot and they were aired by CNN periodically throughout the debate.)  The first half of Thompson’s spot simply showed Romney stating his pro-abortion position during a debate with Ted Kennedy in 1994.  The second half targeted Mike Huckabee’s liberal fiscal record.  When asked about the ad, Thompson responded with a sly grin and a shrug.  He stated simply that those were his opponents own words.

In the time Romney was given to respond, he passionately repeated that he had a pro-choice position at the time he ran for govenor.  As govenor, when actually confronted with the issue, he found that he could not sign a bill that would mean death to thousands of unborn children.  He changed his position.  He pointed out that the change was not immediate and had been made some years ago.  He stated that his record as govenor was clearly pro-life.  He told Republican voters that he had been wrong and that if they wanted a candidate who had always been perfect they would have to get someone else.

(You’d think his opponents would figure out that he has a good, solid, rehearsed answer to this charge and quit using trying to trip him up on it.  It makes him look good and them look petty.  But, with all deference to Thompson, he did all of his “attacking” in a video.  It was done with much more class than Giuliani’s taunting.)

I don’t remember Huckabee’s response to the Thompson video.  With all due respect to Huckabee and his supporters, after a few minutes all of his pontificating just started to sound the same.

Poor John McCain was asked to relive his years as a POW while others answered a question about interrogation techniques.  He was overtly emotional as he persistently attacked Romney’s position on waterboarding when Romney did not actually disagree with him.  In fact, Romney stated clearly that he did not approve of and would not use torture for interrogation.  He further explained, more than once, that he would seek the advice of Senator McCain and others about the effectiveness and morality of interrogation methods.  However, Romney simply refused to discuss the specifics of methods he would or would not use.  He was of the opinion that that information could be useful to our enemies and that those enemies might have figured out how to tune into CNN.

All in all, Romney turned in a credible performance.  He kept his cool and didn’t let himself get tripped up too much.  He did have an awkward moment or two with questions about religion but that is a subject for another post. 

The highlight of the debate replays, in my opinion, should be his scuffle with Giuliani over immigration in which he defenitely came off best.  But you never know,  maybe by tomorrow the Giuliani camp will come up with a really good “Yo Mama” joke to even the score.

The CNN YouTube Republican Presidential Debate will air tonight at 8pm East Coast Time.  As in the Democrat YouTube debate, the questions will be asked via videos submitted to YouTube.  Anderson Cooper of CNN will moderate and CNN will broadcast the debate.

Questions can still be submitted at YouTube.com.  For more information or to watch the debate online visit CNN.com.

(Look here for analysis and highlights from the debate.)

Elliot Spitzer announced this morning that he is abandoning his plan to provide driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.  The announcement comes the day before the Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate at UNLV to be broadcast on CNN.  This means there is less likelihood that Hillary Clinton will have to answer questions about her position on the issue.

The question of whether or not Hillary supports Spitzer’s plan has haunted the Clinton campaign ever since it was asked at the last Democrat Debate.  Hillary managed to do a flip flop in the course of less than two minutes.  The fall-out from the debate debacle has continued for two weeks, her poll numbers are falling and the nomination, once considered a sure thing, is slipping slowly away from her.

As the debate draws nearer, there has been speculation about whether Wolf Blitzer, or the other Democratic nominees, would have the guts to ask Mrs. Clinton for clarification on the issue.  With Spitzer’s announcement, however, it would seem that the issue is off the table.  At least, it seems that there would be little point in phrasing it the same way.

Any questions about immigration will need to be cased in a broader, more hypothetical, manner.  This saves Hillary from looking ridiculous trying to frame an answer to include all of her previous positions.  Also, it will allow her to lather the blame onto the Bush administration as she tried to do in the last debate.

Moving the debate back into abstracts will work in favor of the Clinton campaign.  One has to wonder if the was Spitzer’s intention in withdrawing his plan.  In any case, Hillary has shown her true colors and as long as we can remember who she is, it won’t matter who runs to pull difficult issues out of her way.

Read more about Spitzer’s announcement here: N. Y. Govenor abandons driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.