Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting

Finally, a debate format that allows for, you know, debating.  Back-to-back free-for-alls tonight on ABC - first the Republicans, then the Democrats.

It's been a corker so far, with Romney and Huckabee getting into a bare-knuckle foreign policy brouhaha within the first few minutes.  About an hour in, we moved on to immigration and the rhetorical pugilism in that round pitted Romney against the amnestophilic John McCain.

In addition to the 5 reasonable Republican candidates, they also let Ron Paul join in, which has led to some entertaining 5:1 pile-ons.

For updates, check out Hot Air's open thread, where video of the clipworthier moments will be available throughout the night.

Update:  Mary Katharine Ham is liveblogging on-site.

Update:  Wow - the last round of questions (for each Republican candidate, "How would you contrast against Barack Obama in the general election?") amounted to 10 minutes of free ABC advertising for Obama, with no respondent apparently willing to skewer him (even on a policy basis) unapologetically.  Ron Paul's response was such a love song I thought he was going to announce his intent to tap him as a runningmate.

In terms of Romney vs. McCain come Tuesday, I (as a Romney camper) appreciated it thoroughly.  The more fence-sitting independents (estimated at 45% of New Hampshire's likely primary voters) who go with Obama, the fewer who vote for McMaverick.

Update:  Hmm. Per the above rationale, Romney's and Obama's interests are aligned for the next three days (i.e. injure McCain).  By the same token, Clinton and McCain have similar aims (i.e. keep those independent votes with McCain and away from Obama).  During the time between the two debates, the 10 candidates from both parties were invited on-stage to make nice and shake hands and chit-chat while the audience applauded.  Sure enough, after everyone made the rounds, McCain and Clinton spent the rest of the time paired off in a chummy one-on-one, as did Romney and Obama.

Update:  I don't have the stomach for the Dem round tonight, but Michelle Malkin is dutifully live-blogging (as she did for round 1).

Update:  Here's the Hot Air video repository for the first half.

Update:  And for the second half (in 1, 2, 3 parts).