Winners and Losers in the First Republican Presidential Debate (Updated)

Impressions of the first Republican presidential debate and notes from live blogging of the debate are at Sister Toldjah and Michelle Malkin, among other sites.

Wizbang has more reaction to the debate.

The consensus seems to be that the losers were Chris Matthews, MSNBC, and Politico -- thanks to some biased and often irrelevant questions and lack of control over the time limits of the proceeding.  From Wizbang:

I was amazed at how inane the questions were. What's with "do you believe in evolution?" With all the turmoil going on in the world, that's a question Matthews chose to use? Or "would it be good for America for Bill Clinton to be back in the White House?" What kinds of question is that? Although I loved Romney's reaction: "You've got to be kidding."

Hot Air has a poll up:  Who won?

Hugh Hewitt and Ed Morrissey at Captains Quarters think Mitt Romney won the debate, and explain why.

As a former high school and college debater, I can attest that determining who "won" a presidential debate is a very subjective process.  It's not like academic debate, which is also judged subjectively but with at least a few generally-accepted objective measures of competence.  For example, in academic debate, you cannot prevail if you fail to stay on the topic.  If you fail to answer the question you're supposed to be asking and veer off into a completely unrelated topic, it's as if you've conceded the point you failed to argue. 

Of course, in the real world, candidates often gain ground by failing to answer the question they are given, and instead communicating the points they think they need to make.

In a presidential debate, it's all about moving public opinion in your direction.  It doesn't really matter how you do that.  If standing upside down while juggling green tomatoes does the trick, then expect to see lots of green tomatoes flying.  The measurement of who won or lost a candidates' debate is the change in the public opinion polls before and after the debate (assuming that all other factors remain the same).

Update:  N.Z. Bear has interesting, and at times amusing, photos you won't see anywhere else and on-the-scene coverage of the debate.  Still worth a look today, even though it's (literally) yesterday's news.