This was the Cassius Clay (Mohammed Ali) - Sonny Liston fight of 1965 all over again, except that after Ali (Laffey) knocked out his opponent in the 1st round, the judges continued the fight for all the remaining rounds with Liston (Chafee) knocked out and lying on the floor.

It was a complete victory for Laffey. Whether that will clinch the primary election for his is not clear.

The only person more pathetic than Chafee DURING the debate was Susan Farmer AFTER the debate. Her cheerleading for Linc was so transparent and over the top that it was actually quite amusing. Thank god Taricani was there to give an honest assessment of the debate.

Chuck,

What a difference a few days makes, right? Although (unlike yourself) I thought Laffey had "won" the last debate (though not by a knock-out, to keep with the boxing analogies), this one was anything but close.

Absolutely superb job by Laffey tonight. I was not able to watch it live, however, I did manage to use the DVR for it's intended purpose, and was quite glad I did. Wow!

PS As for Susan Farmer, if anyone reading this was at the RIGOP Convention, where she just kept going on and on, and on ... about Linc's nomination, you'll know why I have so little respect for her left ... beyond pathetic.

I knew the "analyst" panel was stacked against Laffey, but I couldn't figure out the Duffy angle. Carl pointed it out on another post (Duffy's dad worked for Linc's dad.)

Seeing Farmer stumble all over herself to try to avoid saying that Chafee got smoked was pure entertainment.

Last night was the first TV debate I was able to watch and have a few observations.
Laffey wiped the floor with Chafee, looking very professional, collected and very much on message and in control of the issues.
Chafee looked a junior high school kid who's nervous about his first public speaking gig and is incapable of speaking in fluid and complete sentences.
Chafee is easily the worst "debater" I've ever seen in politics. Ever!!!!!
What should be very troubling to the Chafee camp is that I'm no fan (as you all know) of Steve Laffey yet thought Laffey destroyed Chafee not only in substance but in style.
What should trouble the Chafee camp even more is how last night Linc was supposedly so much better than Wednesday night. I can't even imagine how bad Linc was Wednesday night if last night was some big upgrade.
I thought Laffey won the debate hands down and I found the post-debate analysis on Channel 10 to be a total farce.
But when it comes to the Rhode Island media that comes as no suprise.

Will:

I think Steve did so much better in this debate. Perhaps the format had a lot to do with it. I thought, in the previous debate, Chafee had left some blood on the floor on few questions. But in this arrangement, Chafee lost just about every round - (see my blog for what I recorded as a blow by blow).

Regarding Farmer and the Channel 10 Analysis: I took off like a shot for the new media evaluation. Does anyone want to listen to those talking hads anymore? BTW, I thought Susan looked better than she ever did. Did she have some plastic surgery done?

I actually watched the debate again tonight, when it was rebroadcast on C-SPAN nationwide, just to see how it looked the second time around, to see if I might be able to glean something new out of it. This was without a doubt one of the most lopsided victories, since we drove Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait! I mean this was "I wonder who's going to get canned at Chafee HQ on Monday" bad!

Laffey somehow got Chafee to contemplate Osama bin Laden's innocence (that reminded me of the "if Kitty Dukakis got raped and murdered, would you support the death penalty" question at the 1988 debate). He didn't even try to refute that he was only 1 of 3 senators to vote again "working class" tax cuts, wanted illegal aliens to be eligible for social security, brought up on his own that he doesn't like creches and religious displays by citizens, actually citing a case that Laffey won, and even managed to "dis" JFK's economic policies, blaming him for beginning our nation's string of deficits! This thing ran like a blooper reel! Unreal! I'm still stunned.