A DAY AWAY from the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary, at a time when it feels as if primaries should be ending instead of starting, two questions face what's left of the GOP field.
First: Did weekend debates and/or polling knock Mitt Romney off his stride?
Second: How's it looking for Rick Santorum, now that he's out of his Iowan field of dreams?
The answer to the first is: Yeah, a bit. The answer to the second is: Not so good.
Polling data released yesterday by Suffolk University in Boston shows Romney dropping from 40-plus percent to 35 percent, but still easily leading Ron Paul's second-place 20 percent.
It also shows Santorum running fifth, with only 8 percent.
Importantly, the poll was taken Friday and Saturday before candidate debates Saturday night and yesterday.
Those debates were very different: Saturday's sucked; yesterday's was better and it just might move some numbers.
Mitt was clearly in control Saturday night during a sluggish, sometimes pointless ABC News debate.
Highlights for me included: Rick Perry being ignored; Paul and Santorum squabbling over who voted how on debt issues; Jon Huntsman labeling their squabble "a lot of insider gobbledygook" and the thrice-wed Newt Gingrich extolling "the sacrament of marriage."
The highlight had to be a 15-minute stretch that moderator George Stephanopoulos spent probing the oh-so-critical issue of whether states should ban contraceptives.
Even Romney called it "silly."
(This is the same network moderator who in 2008 used debate time to quiz Barack Obama on why he didn't always wear an American-flag lapel pin.)
I'm pretty sure Mitt was poking Santorum at the start. Responding to a question about a drop in unemployment and possible economic improvement, Romney said that President Obama's policies hinder recovery and that Obama taking credit for gains is like "the rooster taking credit for the sunrise."
Standing right next to Mitt, as a result of his strong finish in the meaningless Iowa caucuses, was Santorum, a/k/a the "Rooster," a high-school nickname earned for constantly errant hair strands and a reputation for never backing down.
Well, Santorum lived up to the moniker during yesterday morning's NBC "Meet the Press" debate. He crowed about how he always fights for "conservative principles" and how the GOP needs a fighter, not someone such as Romney who abandoned such principles by declining to seek re-election as Massachusetts governor when prospects for a second term looked grim.
