Five highlights from the GOP debate in New Hampshire

Republican presidential candidates took aim at Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan - and the Federal Reserve - in Tuesday's GOP debate in New Hampshire.

If you missed the GOP presidential debate last night about the economy (hosted by the Washington Post and Bloomberg News), here are five key points from DCDecpder's liveblog coverage with Shortformblog.

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1. By and large, the tone of this debate was far different than the others (JVBrewer, too!). The candidates were seated around a large wooden table, giving the entire thing a more intimate feel.

The moderators did a great job of speeding the questions along and while Ron Paul and Rick Santorum were hardly well served, the entire evening did feel serious and engaged where some of the other debates felt shlocky and crusted over with social media doodads.

2. Most memorable quote of the evening: Herman Cain responding to criticism of his ?999 plan.? Or was it Jon Huntsman saying the ?999 plan? made him think of a pizza deal? Or was it Jon Huntsman?s daughters laying a Twitter smackdown on Mitt Romney over China?

3. There was a ton of talk about the Federal Reserve. Newt Gingrich kicked it all off with a long diatribe about how Ben Bernanke, former Democratic Senator Chris Dodd and Democratic Congressman Barney Frank (Mass.) are all criminals.

Herman Cain also ripped Bernanke then later said he admired Alan Greenspan, which drew immediate rebuke from Ron Paul (?Alan Greenspan was a disaster?) and likely cost Cain with some of the professional, Wall St. Republican set.

4. Everybody is going bananas for ?999.? Herman Cain?s tax plan calling for a 9% federal income tax, a 9% sales tax and a 9% corporate income tax was at the center of the debate. There?s are a ton of moving parts here, but if you only know one thing about it from last night let it be everybody is going to be taking shots at 999 in the weeks ahead.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/szniYbFcBcI/Five-highlights-from-the-GOP-debate-in-New-Hampshire

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