If the Florida presidential primary hinges on debate performance, Mitt Romney sealed the deal Thursday night.
Newt Gingrich -- the anointed "Great Debater" and the candidate of big ideas -- looked and sounded small on the CNN stage in Jacksonville.
Romney, building on a solid showing at Monday night's debate in Tampa, bested Gingrich in a series of exchanges. From immigration to stock holdings to moon colonization, Romney exposed his opponent as shallow, hypocritical and a bit looney.
Even worse for Gingrich, Rick Santorum came out of the shadows with his best debate performance to date.
A Sunshine State News Poll this week found that debates do matter -- a lot. Florida's GOP voters said they rely on them more than advertising to help choose their candidate.
In terms of stage presence and preparation, Romney demonstrated that he could prevail in a somnolent setting like Tampa's and win a more kinetic contest like the one in Jacksonville.
The bombastic Gingrich tried several ploys to take down Romney on Thursday, but failed each time.
The Georgian started the debate by claiming that Romney was targeting "grandmothers" for deportation. The former Massachusetts governor turned Gingrich's pseudo-compassion on its head, saying, "Our problem is not 11 million grandmothers." Rather, Romney said, it's the free education services, health care and jobs taken by illegal aliens.
Romney, sharpened by a new debate coach, employed some of his strongest language of the campaign. "Repulsive," said Romney of Gingrich's advertised claim that he was "anti-immigrant."
And that was just the beginning.
Gingrich thought he could stun his nemesis with another broadside about Romney's stock holdings and investments. But Romney effectively kneecapped the former House speaker by observing that Gingrich himself held stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- a reminder of the Georgian's inside dealings.
Then there was the moon. Seizing on Gingrich's outlandish new idea of establishing a lunar colony, and perhaps creating a 51st state, Romney bluntly asserted, "If I had an executive who wanted to spend billions to go to the moon, I'd say you're fired."
Gingrich gave his supporters a little to cheer about -- but those moments were fleeting. His biggest applause line came toward the end of the debate when he declared there was "a war against Christianity by media elites and academics."
Looking grim and beleaguered much of the night, and badgered by moderator Wolf Blitzer, Gingrich attempted at one point to call a cease-fire on the personal attacks between him and Romney. Even that didn't work.
As Romney kept landing punches, and Gingrich's haymakers repeatedly missed the mark, Santorum scored points by positioning himself as an alternative.
The former Pennsylvania senator hectored both front-runners as apologists for Obamacare and the individual mandate on which it is predicated.
"We can't give away this issue, it's too foundational," Santorum said of the role Obamacare will play in the fall campaign.
Though Santorum's forensics won rave reviews from media pundits, the fact remains that he, too, supported the individual mandate back in 1994. Ron Paul is the only consistent conservative on this point.
Defeated in his re-election bid, Santorum -- along with the libertarian Paul -- remains a marginal player in the Republican field. Several tea party groups in Florida made that determination this week and threw their support to Gingrich as the best hope to stop Romney.
But Romney, with vastly greater resources and the tacit backing of the party establishment, is gaining momentum as Newt unravels.
In a devastating critique, Romney observed that a pandering Gingrich "goes state to state, telling people what they want to hear. We have to say no to this kind of spending."
Indeed, Gingrich's "big ideas" inevitably lead him down the path to quasi-governmental schemes larded with pork-barrel politics and public-private deals not significantly different from the Obama agenda.
Whereas the White House cozied up to Solyndra, Gingrich proposes to run a guest worker program through Visa, Master Card and American Express.
Instead of appearing innovative, Gingrich is increasingly viewed as erratic, ill-prepared and ultimately unreliable. And it was all on display in Jacksonville Thursday night.
Mitt marched on, and Newt was road kill.
Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or (772) 801-5341.
