Florida Debate

GOP rivals faced off in Florida on TV in a debate style(?) format with Brian Williams as moderator/question poser. Newt seems to be stepping up his game as he is obviously more comfortable in the position as the new 'leader ' of the group of Obama challengers. With the Florida primary a week away, lots of campaigning remains to be done.
All participants made points, few if any faux pas were evident, and all in attendence enjoyed the experience.
Did it help viewers/voters make up their minds? I'm sure it did help some; but these Republican candidates are trying to separate themselves from the pack of conservative partisans who want to be the Conservatives conservative. Within the broad definition, that could be any of the candidates, depending on your personal definition.
Mitt(Willard) Romney is playing catchup, a new role for him during this campaign. Ron Paul is playing 'stay close as possible'-don't flame out,yet, and Rick Santorum is playing 'stay even, stay close, stay in".
No hard ball questions really got the juices flowing, but NBC wanted as much exposure as the candidates without getting splattered with mud should there be any thrown.
Again, it's only January, and for some, November is a long way off.

State of the Union
Tomorrow night, President Obama will give his final state of the union as a 1st term president. He knows it's an election year so this speech is really a campaign speech. He's launching himself for 2012. He hopes to convince voters, including the ever expanding numbers of independents, that only he can propel the country out of the troubling recession that refuses to go away. However, he has to be careful that he doesn't dwell on the fact that we really are in a recession that has existed for his entire term(despite a definition with an early termination date).
Dems around the country are hoping that he can help win back the house as he tries to win another 4 years in the White House.
We'll be watching from downtown Tahoma.