The only redeeming quality of the Florida Debate hosted by NBC is that perhaps it was so boring and so hard to find on the dial that few watched it.  With the energy sapped out of the event ahead of hand by Brian William's lecture to the crowd warning them to remain quiet, the event was dull from the opening tap.

Now while that may be considered a win for the intellectual weight of the event from the point of view of the pointy -headed elites, I would totally disagree.  This election is correctly about the righteous anger of the conservative base who sees their nation being ripped out from under them.  To remove all of the passion from an event is not actually an enhancement.  It makes the entire exercise phony.  As Rush Limbaugh correctly stated yesterday during his opening monologue, the passion that Gingrich has tapped into is justified and real and is decades in the making.

Beyond that, it was a victory for Barack Obama in the sense that while he is the main problem, he was hardly mentioned during the entire affair.  In fact, during the first 51 minutes, Obama's name had only been mentioned briefly three times -- and had not taken any fire.  Finally, at 9:51 Newt managed to actually lay the blame for something on Obama -- his weakness on Iran -- but then proceeded to totally whiff an opportunity to tie in the Keystone Pipeline to the issue.  It was one of several made for Newt moments that he missed. 

Newt's other whiff was when he bought into the premise that the Bush tax cuts did not work.  His answer did include some pertinent facts about the damaging effects of 9-11 on the economy, but it was on a tee and he barely scuffed the ball.

Newt's other big problem is that he (and/or his consultants) are under the notion that he must reply to every little attack on irrelevancies from Mitt while he can blithely ignore more substantive attacks from Santorum.  This is the obsession that the two front-runners have with each other that helps Obama and might help Santorum.  Santorum's attacks on Newt were over the top and bordered on flat out dishonesty due to context and exaggeration.  But it is Newt's duty to point that out, not anyone else's.  The obsession with Mitt is awful strategy.

Meanwhile, the issue of energy was apparently only important enough for one question, which went to Rick Santorum.  He handled it pretty well. What was disappointing is that Mitt Romney and Newt -- who apparently thought the little technical details of Mitt's tax returns and Newt's contract with Freddie were worth about 15 minutes of time  -- didn't think the energy issue was worth them 'jumping in' and shredding Obama on. 

Instead, they stood by and allowed questions on Terry Schiavo (really?) and 'do not resuscitate orders' and something about cane sugar.  I was thinking if I nod off, please DNR me.  At least not until this thing is over.

At 71 minutes Mitt did a decent job of trying to remind the world of the economy and Obama's role in it.  It did not stick.   Pretty soon we were onto the question of space.  And why not? The NBC debate was obviously held in a parallel universe where Barack Obama is not President and we aren't having a total societal meltdown due to statism. 

C. Edmund Wright is a frequent contributor to American Thinker and is currently a copy writer and consultant for Winning Our Future, a PAC supporting Newt Gingrich and other conservative causes.