Here is video from last night’s debate in Florida where Mitt Romney threw a laundry list of attacks at Newt Gingrich. He attacked Gingrich for his time as Speaker of the House. He called Gingrich a “disgrace,” and said he sees no way Republicans can retake the White House with Gingrich as the nominee. Gingrich countered by setting the record straight on his accomplishments as Speaker of the House in building a long-lasting Republican majority as compared to Romney’s tenure as Governor of Massachusetts, where he said the Republican Party did not advance in the state during his time in office.

Too early to tell how Romney’s more aggressive style in attacking Gingrich will come off to voters in Florida? Will they be impressed that he is a strong fighter, or will he just come off as desperate? We’ll see as more polls come out over the next several days.

WATCH COMPLETE VIDEO of the Debate.

The NBC GOP Presidential Debate in Florida just concluded, and it was the worst of the 18 debates held so far in this campaign cycle.

It was clear that moderator Brian Williams had one objective – Don’t ask any question that would lead the GOP Candidates to say a word about Barack Obama. It was so obvious. If a Republican President was sitting in the White House and it was a Democratic Candidate Debate, virtually every question would consist of nerf balls served up to tee off on the Republican President. But with Obama in the White House – not a single question about his policies, his actions. Only a few times did any of the candidates ignore the question to attack President Obama, which was a mistake. I thought Newt Gingrich would repeatedly make a direct line for Obama – and he did a few times – but not like I thought he would.

Mitt Romney came out attacking. In fact, it was like he wanted to dump all of his attacks in the first five minutes of the debate. He was trying to rattle Gingrich and get under his skin. Gingrich was much more subdued. I think he let Romney go on too long without interrupting him, but he never lost his temper. In fact, he was perhaps too subdued. It appeared Gingrich came into the night determined to show he could control himself under fire. Romney attacked Gingrich’s record as Speaker of the House and his work for Freddie Mac as a consultant – which Romney would rather call “influence-peddling.” His line of attack did lead Gingrich to an opportunity to say he was proud of his work in support of Medicare Part D – which could help him among the many Senior voters who live in Florida.

Rick Santorum had a good night, clearly working hard to show himself as the anti-Romney/anti-Newt candidate. Again and again he contrasted himself to both Romney and Gingrich. He had some strong answers, but not really any single moment that would really become the focus of discussion in the days ahead. Ron Paul was very much the same, setting himself apart from the other three candidates and saying pretty much what he says in every debate.

Overall, the real story out of this debate is how awful the questions were. It made for a rather boring debate that I don’t really think will have much impact on the race in Florida. Romney may have helped himself slightly, as did Santorum. But I don’t think Gingrich will really lose ground because of what happened tonight. I think Gingrich will continue to lead in Florida in the days ahead, though it may tighten slightly. Santorum could move up some, but he is a long way back. Ron Paul does not look to be playing hard in Florida, but will probably still get around 10% of the vote.

Thursday night’s debate on CNN is set up to be even more significant. It can’t be worse than the debate tonight.

GRADES: Romney – B+, Santorum – B+, Gingrich – B, Paul – B, Debate Moderators – F.

UPDATE: WATCH LIVE VIDEO of the NBC GOP Presidential Debate. It will begin at 9 PM ET.

NOTE: The GOP Debate tonight will be on NBC at 9 PM ET. It does not show up on the DirecTV listing. But if you go to the website of your local NBC station, you should see it listed in the programming schedule. It will last for 2 hours from what I can tell.

The remaining four GOP Presidential Candidates will face-off tonight in a Presidential Debate on NBC. The debate will begin at 9:00 PM ET, and will be moderated by NBC News anchor Brian Williams, along with help from National Journal, and the Tampa Bay Times.

This debate comes just two days after Newt Gingrich’s shocking victory in South Carolina by more than 12 points over Mitt Romney. The debate will be held in Florida, where the candidates are now battling eight days ahead of the Florida Primary.

Newt Gingrich had better be ready for some heavy fire from all sides – from the questioners, from Mitt Romney who is desperate to turn his fortunes around, and from Rick Santorum who needs a game-changer to replace Gingrich as the anti-Romney conservative alternative. But as he did twice last week, Gingrich can take the attacks and turn them into positives by attacking the media or the Left. I would look for Gingrich to try and sound like the settled conservative choice to take on Barack Obama. Look for him to launch direct sound-bite attacks on Barack Obama and the Left, the way he has done against the media in past debates.

Romney will go after Gingrich on Freddie Mac, on his ethics while in Congress, and on Gingrich’s stability. Romney will portray Gingrich as too volatile and unstable for Republicans to take a chance on him.

Santorum will attack both Romney and Gingrich as “not true conservatives,” and will continue to tout his victory in Iowa (by 34 votes) and say that only he can win in blue states like Pennsylvania.

Ron Paul will hammer on his themes of cutting the budget by $1 Trillion in his first year as President. He may face some tough questions about his newsletters and questions on whether his candidacy is really about winning or just a protest movement.

It will be fascinating to see if Gingrich can withstand all the fire that will come his way and keep his momentum going.

In case you missed it, here is complete video of last night’s CNN GOP Presidential Debate in Charleston, South Carolina.

Rick Santorum went into last night’s GOP Debate with a clear goal: Take down Newt Gingrich. He went after him, and from a political standpoint, he had no choice.

Despite Santorum’s better finish in Iowa and by a hair in New Hampshire, Gingrich is the one who has emerged in South Carolina as the viable alternative to defeat Mitt Romney. Right now, Gingrich is polling 20 points better in South Carolina that Rick Santorum, but you would not have known that from the attacks Santorum leveled against Gingrich again and again last night. He tried to paint Gingrich as essentially unstable and without the courage to do what is needed to defeat Barack Obama. Here is one of his attacks on Gingrich:

What we don’t know is whether Santorum’s offensive against Gingrich was enough to bring down Gingrich’s vote totals in South Carolina to prevent him from winning. It’s possible Santorum could get a huge surge going into the voting tomorrow based on his performance last night – but it would have to be a really huge surge for him to win. The more likely outcome if his attacks worked with voters is that Gingrich will lose enough steam for Mitt Romney to eek out a victory. If so, depending on how close Gingrich and Santorum wind up to each other, the battle for the “anti-Romney” slot moves to Florida. But if Gingrich goes on to win in South Carolina, despite Santorum’s best efforts to bring him down, and Santorum finishes a distant third or fourth, then he will have little claim that he – and not Newt Gingrich – is the guy who can defeat Mitt Romney for the GOP Nomination. If we get any polls later today or in the morning done AFTER this debate, we’ll see if it shows downward movement with Gingrich and upward movement for Santorum.

Watch complete video of the Debate.

Tonight’s GOP Presidential Debate on CNN just ended, and it was a shootout for two hours.

The most significant moment of the night came right at the beginning, when CNN’s John King began by asking Newt Gingrich about an interview his ex-wife, Marianne, has given to ABC News. Newt Gingrich was outraged, and just blasted John King for beginning a Presidential Debate with such a question. He took the opportunity to blast the liberal media and their constant attempts to protect Barack Obama by attacking Republican candidates. Gingrich got two standing ovations from the audience!

Everything else was pretty anti-climactic after that. On points, I thought all four candidates actually did very well. They each got some good points in and some strong hits on the other candidates. Rick Santorum clearly was trying to tear down Newt Gingrich tonight – as well as Mitt Romney. He tried to paint Gingrich as unstable and not trustworthy as the nominee. But Gingrich responded effectively by reminding everyone that he was the architect of the Republican Revolution in 1994 and Santorum was an understudy.

Santorum knew this was his chance to make the case that he should be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. He worked hard at it, and was effective, but I don’t think he did enough to derail Gingrich. If the opening five minutes had not taken place, he would come out of this debate in a stronger position. But it did happen, and Gingrich will benefit from it.

I actually think this was Ron Paul’s best debate. He did not get to speak as often as the others, but when he did, he made some good points and got some jabs in on the other candidates. He took Rick Santorum to task for questioning his pro-life commitment, which Paul said should be dealt with primarily at the state rather than the Federal level.

I thought Mitt Romney was stronger tonight than he was on Monday night, but not enough to overshadow Gingrich’s opening 5 minutes. He did not hurt himself – except for his unwillingness once again to commit to releasing his taxes. I am mystified by how Romney is dealing with this issue. It’s hurting him, confirming the worst fears of GOP voters about him – that they might not can trust him and that he has something to hide. Romney has unwittingly given his GOP opponents a big club to beat him over the head with – and they have done it.

So, coming out of this debate, I think it is going to be a real horse race to win South Carolina between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. I would guess right now that Gingrich will win, unless something really new and devastating emerges about Gingrich from his ex-wife’s “Nightline” interview tonight. I would look for Santorum to gain some strength, but not nearly enough to challenge for the victory in South Carolina. Ron Paul is likely to take third place in South Carolina. I think he only helped himself with this debate. Grades: Gingrich A-, Santorum B+, Paul B+, Romney B.

How would you grade the candidates in this debate?

Here is video of Charles Krauthammer last night on The O’Reilly Factor, where he evaluated the Fox News GOP Presidential Debate that took place Monday night. Krauthammer thought Newt Gingrich came away the big winner. He said Ron Paul “lost really big”; Romney came out “so-so, nicked slightly”; Santorum “did well” but was “overshadowed” and “lost ground.” He felt Rick Perry had his best performance, but too little, too late.