While some pundits -- namely, one who used to live down the street from the candidate in Moorestown, N.J. -- thought that Herman Cain needed to do more in the Republican debate on Thursday, a much bigger name was impressed with the former CEO of Godfathers Pizza (yes, Vanilla Ice is a bigger name than your humble blogger, but I bet he can't name every president and vice president in order).

While Floridians can be excused if their focus was on other matters on Thursday night -- namely, the Jacksonville Jaguars being utterly routed by the New England Patriots in their first NFL pre-season game -- the debate held in Iowa by the various Republican presidential candidates marked the state of a different stage of the contest. For the first time, the Republican hopefuls went after each other, and there were some interesting clashes between the various candidates.