Who won the final Iowa GOP debate?

The Republican debates have been the surprise hit of the fall political and TV season. They're entertaining and revealing. They've helped doom Rick Perry and launch Newt Gingrich, and they've given Ron Paul a new shot at exposure that pundits largely wouldn't give him.

Last night, the FOX News debate in Iowa offered voters a final chance at sifting before that state's caucus on Jan. 3.

Who did best?

Time's Mark Halperin says Mitt Romney, who gets an A- in Halperin's grading for how each candidate performed and improved their standing in the race. Romney recovered from a shaky performance in the last debate and was "smart, focused, big-brained and cool," said Halperin.

Other grades: Michele Bachmann B+, Rick Santorum B, Newt Gingrich B-, Ron Paul B-, John Huntsman C-, Rick Perry C-.

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza picked a few winners, led by Bachmann, who "was forceful — and effective — when she lashed out at Gingrich for repeatedly acting dismissively toward her. A nice night for Bachmann," says Cillizza.

His other winners: Perry and Romney. His losers: Ron Paul ("spent WAY too much time defending his isolationist foreign policy views") and Gingrich, who "got caught in a philosophical discussion about government sponsored enterprises — GSE’s — that allowed his opponents to swing away on him taking lots and lots of money from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae."

Conservative blogger Erick Erickson said Romney had a good debate, but "he continues to have little humor with handling his flip-flops, which will make the Democrats all the more eager to go after him on those."

Gingrich, said Erickson, held his own, but Ron Paul "proved yet again that while he can hit all the right notes on economics and spending these days, he is too nuts on foreign policy to be trusted with the Presidency."

We had Romney and Bachmann as our winners. Romney made the right choice in letting others, including Bachmann, go after Newt on his GSE "consulting." That allowed Romney to offer an affirming presence while turning questions into big-picture monologues that contrasted his policies with President Barack Obama's failures.

Gingrich took a beating from Bachmann and Paul the first half of the debate, and his body language and peevish, professorial responses didn't serve him well. He recovered in the second half with several crowd pleasers, although we're not sure viewers at home got quite as caught up in the crowd's approval at Newt's suggestion that Congress change the balance of power by reining in federal judges - including eliminating the 9th District Court of Appeals. Paul, and later Romney, offered a sobering whoa to that concept. Call it a wash for Gingrich.

Want a debate fact checker? Here are two: The New York Times takes a look, as does Politifact.

Peter St. Onge