Giuliani Stumbles, Leaving GOP Field Wide Open

Of all the candidates, Giuliani comes off the most as a broken record.

He constantly refers to his time as mayor and how he revived New York. This presents two problems for Giuliani. First, he's awfully good at exaggerating cause and effect, as many American cities improved similarly during the 1990s.

Second, voters from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- particularly gun owners who are familiar with his stance on gun control -- don't really care about New York City.

I think in a month we will be having a conservation about how the Giuliani camp misplayed the big-state strategy as momentum moves to other candidates scoring well in the early primaries.

These other candidates are Mike Huckabee and Romney -- the top two dogs in Iowa -- who also had an exchange about immigration. A viewer found an obscure reference to an education bill from Arkansas that appeared to favor children of undocumented workers for college scholarships. Huckabee, Arkansas' former governor, cleared up some confusion on the proposal, while also making it clear it never became the law.

Romney, however, felt at this point he could drive home an advantage on the question. He charged that it wasn't fair to put children of undocumented workers ahead of other needy kids.

Huckabee responded by commenting that in American, we rarely punish children for their parents' misdeeds. I think Huckabee came out ahead on this one, while Romney came off as being against kids getting a good education.