"You may not agree with me on everything, but you don't have to wake up in the morning and wonder, 'Is Rick Perry going to be the same guy in two years that he was two years ago?'" He also referred to what he has acknowledged is a less-than-spectacular debating ability, trying to turn it to his advantage by pointing out that President Obama is considered a skilled debater.
Then Rubio had a rather spectacular meltdown at the debate, where he hilariously tried to answer the charge that he was just repeating a memorized talking point -- by repeating the same memorized talking point, over and over again.
The number from Nielsen isn't as spectacular as the other debates that have pulled record audiences for CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.
People will puzzle over and debate this strange, spectacular athlete for years to come.
All the post-game punditry aside, President Obama didn't really blow Wednesday night's debate in any spectacular or memorable way, the way George H.W. Bush glanced at his watch, or the way Al Gore sighed dramatically.
"I wasn't even aware I was on television," says Tracey Emin 18 years after a spectacular performance in a TV debate following the 1997 Turner prize made her a celebrity.
In an instant, the Spectacular altered the terms of debate, creating a sense of pervasive and unprecedented vulnerability among Americans, a sense revivified by each new report of anthrax, each fresh incident of a deranged assailant on a plane or a Greyhound bus.
All eight of these men will be in the first big debate, barring some spectacular meltdown in their polling numbers.
But Emily Thornberry and I glimpsed the aurora borealis late last night and - when we saw just how spectacular it was becoming - debated whether or not to wake Jenny Willott, who was already out for the count (a herders' hut is positively luxurious after an igloo).
Nor, he added, were those made by Richard E. Mourdock, whose Senate campaign in Indiana was derailed in spectacular fashion after he said in a debate that it was "God's will" when a pregnancy resulted from rape.
