Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have been giving each other body blows, sometimes through surrogates, all week. Last night they had a chance to go toe to toe, and they did not let the opportunity go by.

A nice compilation video of the night’s best lines:

There seemed to be far less Twitter traffic during this debate, as most people wonder what there is left to talk about. But, there’s always some good snark to be had if you dig deep enough.

Apparently I missed a GOP debate last night. Last one til Feb 22??? What will I use Twitter for til then?

— Daniel Dennis Jones (@blanket) January 27, 2012

@RickSantorum ‘s 93 year-old Mother “stole the show” @ GOP debate in Jacksonville, Fl last night. Wow, she looked amazing, so youthful!

— Conway-Vogel (@Margaret_Conway) January 27, 2012

The GOP debate last night was a waste of everyone’s time. If Newt or Romney win the Fl primary, it says a lot about the voters in Fl.

— Curtis (@ULshootUrIout) January 27, 2012

The one month GOP debate break made last night’s strong Romney performance even more important.#FLdebate

— Steve Lombardo (@Steve_Lombardo) January 27, 2012

Tonight is last GOP debate for a while. If you still want to watch poor getting swindled, watch one of the pawn shows.

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) January 26, 2012

I’ve been told there is yet another GOP Debate tonight! This is like being instructed by your dentist that you need a root canal every week.

— The Bill Walton Trip (@NotBillWalton) January 27, 2012

Yes, this is probably the most important GOP debate. It’s not a cliche for once.

— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) January 27, 2012

This is the 19th GOP debate. If you’ve seen every one, I don’t know what happened in your life, but I want you to know it gets better.

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) January 27, 2012

GOP debate highlights: Fat moron argues with idiot Mormon while creepy homophobic sweater vest dude and crazy old guy look on #CNNdebate

— Paul Solomon (@FrankTheDoorman) January 27, 2012

While discussing what “agencies of government” he would eliminate if elected to the nation’s highest office, Perry had a bit of a brain-fart and was unable to recall the third doomed agency key to his platform.

The moderators pushed him on whether or not he could remember the rest of his point, to which Perry uncomfortably looked down, attempted to recall his point, and eventually resigned and said “oops.”

Here’s the clip, if you missed it:

That clip has been submitted to reddit by tons of users, and here are some of the headlines that they have come up with:

Watch Rick Perry’s Campaign End Before Your Eyes -

Rick Perry flushes it all down the toilet in one golden minute –

Rick Perry drops out of the Republican race –

Rick Perry just “oopsed” his way out of Republican candidacy -

The Twitter reaction has mostly piled on as well –

It appears that the third agency that Perry couldn’t get out was the Energy Department. Perry made his rounds this morning in order to try and battle the negative tide that appears to be turning against him.

“There were so many federal agencies that come to mind, that I want to get rid of, that the Energy Department would not come out,” he said in an interview with Good Morning America.

Not everyone it quick to jump on the Texas Governor, however. For this we go back to reddit, where a comment thread in the politics subsection is drawing some attention. User phreakymonkey is not pleased with the era of the soundbite:

Having a brain fart at the umpteenth debate in the middle of a relentless campaign tour doesn’t mean anything about his fitness to govern and shouldn’t, in a perfect world, affect his chances in the election. There are plenty of policy issues he can and should be taken to task for, but this sort of inane bullshit is what cost people like Howard Dean the nomination and further ensures that only emotionless rhetoric- and platitude-spewing robots will ever reach office.

He’s obviously no Rick Perry fan, but he seems to be less of a fan of the level of political discourse and candidate-choosing in the country.

Fuck Rick Perry, but fuck everybody who buys into this cynical reality show simulacrum of a political dialogue the U.S. has developed, too. If you’re the kind of person who discounts Rick Perry based on thirty seconds of footage, you’re a part of the problem.

Full disclosure, I’m no Rick Perry fan. But does that reddit user make a valid point? Does it undermine the legitimacy of our political discourse to allow something like this to absolutely ruin a campaign? Of course, the fact that we live in the age of YouTube probably doesn’t help this.

On the other hand, however, how you look on camera is important – we’ve seen that phenomena hold true since the time of JFK. And Perry did look pretty ridiculous on television last night.

And thanks to the internet, will continue to look ridiculous for the days and weeks to come.

All of those exchanges are now available on the Fox News YouTube Channel, as are dozens of other clips from last night’s debate. All in all, 39 clips are available to watch.

The official YouTube Blog has a post today talking about last night’s debate. In the post, they ask you to continue talking about the candidates’ performances on the Fox News YouTube channel. Post your comments and grade the candidates on their responses on certain topics.

In addition to giving the candidates a grade, when you visit the Fox News YouTube Channel you’ll find a “pulse” tab that shows data visualizations based on the debate.

Over on the Google Public Sector Blog, you’ll find some pretty interesting search trends from last night.

For instance, searches for former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who was participating in his first debate, spiked all night – well over the frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. And every time Herman Cain mentioned his “9-9-9″ plan, searches concerning it skyrocketed.

Also, Mitt Romney’s book “No Apology” was searched more than Rick Perry’s book “Fed Up.”

In case you missed it, you can watch the entire debate below –

What did you think about the debate? Who had a good night? Whose performance hurt their chances? Let us know in the comments.

And remember to also submit your comments to the individual clips on the Fox News YouTube channel.

At the beginning of the month, partners YouTube and Fox News announced the interactive Fox News / Google debate that would feature the Republican Presidential Primary candidates answering questions from the online community.

Tonight’s the night for the debate. It will be streamed live on YouTube over at the Fox News channel starting at 9 pm EST. (It will also air on the Fox News TV channel)

According to a Google blog post, over 18,000 questions have been submitted on the Fox News YouTube channel, ranging in topics from immigration reform to health care to social security.

Like discussed before, the debate will feature some of these pre-submitted questions along with live submissions during the debate from folks online. Google will also be setting up real-time voting on the issues and on the candidate’s responses via the YouTube broadcast.

Even if you’re watching on TV, you can visit youtube.com/foxnews during the debate to vote on real-time polling questions and submit live commentary. Throughout the evening, we’ll share Google politics-related search trend information and public data that will provide context to the issues discussed. Fox News moderators will ask specific questions that were submitted by citizens through YouTube, and we’ll be looking at overall trends that emerge from the questions in aggregate.

YouTube will also be hosting a live pre-debate show starting at 8:30.

The debate will be hosted by Fox’s Bret Baier.

Remember to submit your questions to the Fox News YouTube channel.

Those who may have snickered upon first hearing of the CNN/YouTube Debates may need to shift their thinking, if they have not done so already.

Steve Grove, Head of YouTube News and Politics, said on the official Google blog that YouTube provides a “leveling effect” when it comes to making a point politically. “Any voter with a video camera and access to the Internet has the opportunity to be seen and heard,” he said.

Those who do the best job at communicating rise to the top as they collect “community view counts, rankings, linkages, and embeds.”

The utility and reach of YouTube received validation as political campaigns made the site part of the campaign trail. Grove said seven out of the sixteen Presidential candidates announced their candidacies on YouTube.

The YouTube Debates for Democrats and Republicans demonstrated the leveling effect Grove mentioned. Eight thousand questions submitted on video opened the typically geographically-closed debates to a broader number of voters.

Grove expects YouTube’s role will grow as the campaign field winnows out candidates during the primary season. Perhaps one last debate between the Republican and Democratic frontrunners will be a YouTube milestone later in 2008.

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