Your Christmas gift is that there will be no more debates

Gingrich, Romney ready for Iowa sprint:

Given his likely strength in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary, Romney may be able to survive a so-so finish in Iowa. It appears more important for Gingrich to win Iowa, or come close, and Thursday's two-hour televised debate in Sioux City probably helped his cause.

It wasn't so much that the former House speaker had a solid second hour after a somewhat shaky start. It's more that Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texan, expressed his anti-war, anti-interventionist views so vehemently that he may have turned off mainstream Republicans who otherwise might have helped him to a surprising first-place finish.

My favorite line, from Dr. No ...

"Do terrorists go to Switzerland and Sweden to commit terrorism? No, we're bombing them."

He has been stealing this joke from Osama bin Laden for some time now. It's also not factual. Speaking of untruths:

"I balanced the budget for four straight years, paid off $405 billion in debt." -- Newt Gingrich

Gingrich was off on both claims concerning the budget. The budget was indeed balanced for four years, but it’s a stretch for him to take credit for more than two of those years (since he was no longer in Congress). As for paying off $405 billion in debt, the data we found shows the debt actually increased during Gingrich’s four-year tenure as speaker by more than $800 billion.

I think Mitt Romney has to be feeling a lot better about his prospects this morning.