I’ll be liveblogging tonight’s action. Refresh this page for updates once things get rolling. There’s already a little excitement and the event hasn’t even started:

There are several security officers at every entrance to the college checking IDs. Two hours before the forum is scheduled to start there are already about 30 Paul supporters protesting on the sidewalk. There have also been unconfirmed reports about a small aircraft flying a banner reading “Ron Paul Revolution” around Manchester.

They’re as loony as the Code Pink crowd - but probably better looking. Stay tuned for updates.

Wrap Up
The Fox focus group is hammering Huckabee on his initial confrontation with Romney. The exchange between the two of them, and Wallace’s attack on Huckabee’s foreign policy shortcomings, are the big stories coming out of this event. Will it have an impact? I think so. The Huckabee surge may have been slowed.

McCain performed well enough. He certainly didn’t sustain any real damage. I think the question here is did Romney’s slightly better performance sway a game-changing percentage of undecided voters? It’s possible.

The group’s take on Fred Thompson is exactly what I’ve feared. In essence they agree with him but his style is a major turnoff. They overwhelmingly agreed that he was the worst performer. It’s unfortunate but not unexpected.

Update 8:30 PM CST:
Huckabee thinks Republicans could hold the White House if they “actually solve problems.” It sounds silly but I think it will resonate. McCain’s focus is security.

Update 8:26 PM CST:
Wallace is grilling Rudy on the Bernie Kerik case and asking his to assure “republican voters” that they won’t have to worry about Rudy being further implicated or tied to the mob. I don’t think Rudy managed to pull that off.

Update 8:20 PM CST:
Wallace is on “flip-flopping” now. These topics are useless and tired.

Update 8:20 PM CST:
Huckabee: “Chuck Norris is standing outside right now.”
Thompson: “If John Wayne was here I’d have him beat him up.”

Update 8:17 PM CST:
Huckabee is referencing his slimy ad stunt in an attempt to address Wallace’s question about the tone of the campaign.

Update 8:14 PM CST:
Fox is replaying highlights from various negative campaign ads. McCain went first and didn’t bite.

Update 8:10 PM CST:
Fred has the only insightful take on immigration and blames policy makers on both sides of the border for encouraging illegal immigration.

Update 8:08 PM CST:
Rudy is rattling off the immigration buzzwords.

Update 8:07 PM CST:
Romney and Wallace are trying to challenge the harshness of Huckabee’s immigration plan.

Update 8:05 PM CST:
Romney and Wallace are trying to challenge the harshness of Huckabee’s immigration plan.

Update 8:00 PM CST:
Romney is pwning McCain on illegal immigration. That’s easy enough to do.

Update 7:54 PM CST:
Fred lands another: “Wasn’t that Ted Kennedy at your bill signing?” - directed at Mitt.

Update 7:53 PM CST:
Fred lands one: “My friend Mitt thinks experience is important in all areas except national security.”

Update 7:46 PM CST:
Holy crap! Chris Wallace just destroyed Huckabee. He highlighted his numerous national security and foreign policy missteps and then asked him, in essence, how can you claim to be up for the job? This will be the defining moment of this event unless Ron Paul steers his blimp into the building.

Update 7:43 PM CST:
Romney: “The Clinton’s have endorsed Senator McCain’s immigration plan.” Ouch. He made a pretty good case for the office requiring broad based leadership skills instead of specific expertise. It’s his attempt to undercut McCain’s national security credentials while highlighting his impressive resume.

Update 7:36 PM CST:
Rudy dismissed the whole change question as frivolous. It was my favorite take.

Update 7:34 PM CST:
McCain is shifting from change to national security. He’s blasting Adam Gadahn for tearing up his passport and promising to deliver Osama.

Update 7:32 PM CST:
Romney on McCain and change: “Just sending the same people to Washington, but in different chairs, is not going to change the outcome.”

Update 7:29 PM CST:
Ugh. Chris Wallace wants to talk about “change”.

Update 7:28 PM CST:
Fred Thompson is calling for a simplified tax code but Wallace wants to move on.

Update 7:23 PM CST:
Romney: “We also need a president who knows how to shrink the federal government.” Amen and a great response to Huckabee’s cheesy class warfare.

Update 7:21 PM CST:
Huckabee is feeling your pain. It would be a good moment for him if Romney hadn’t just kicked his feet out from under him on taxes.

Update 7:20 PM CST:
McCain on Social Security: “Tell the American people it’s broken and it’s got to be fixed.”

Update 7:18 PM CST:
Fred Thompson on Social Security: “I have the only plan dealing with Social Security.” and “We’re promising future retirees something we can’t possible deliver.” I want to see him back up and tackle the tax issue.

Update 7:14 PM CST:
Rudy: “I am a supply-sider.”

Update 7:11 PM CST:
Romney on Huckabee’s tax claims: “Mike, you make up facts faster than you talk.” Huckabee then dodged a direct question, twice - “Did you raise taxes?”

Update 7:08 PM CST:
Huckabee getting nailed on $500 million in tax increases.

Update 7:08 PM CST:
Romney: “I’ve got a record of cutting spending and cutting taxes.” He seems a bit agitated.

Update 7:05 PM CST:
McCain: Spending cuts drive tax cuts. He’s more on target, in both tone and message, than Romney.

Update 7:03 PM CST:
We’re starting off on taxes. Chris is hitting Romney on tax increases and Romney is immediately deflecting with jabs at McCain and Huckabee.

Update 7:00 PM CST:
Chris Wallace is kicking off the show.

This approach, this tone, will unravel Hillary’s campaign faster than the Obama-smitten media ever hoped to. It’s at least as annoying as Ron Paul’s persistent whine.

Her poll numbers in New Hampshire are not looking good.

I was out and about during last night’s debates so here’s a roundup of takes from the blogosphere and beyond. You can watch both the Democratic and Republican debates courtesy of the New York Times if you missed them too.

Right Wing News
Ron Paul (Loser): Sounded horrendous, as always, on foreign policy and perhaps more surprisingly, couldn’t even come across well on illegal immigration, where he probably has the best record of anyone on the stage. There wasn’t a single point during the whole night where I’d genuinely say he gave a good answer.

Michelle Malkin
Gibson follows up with a question on possibility of nuke attack on American soil. Scary thought: John Edwards as president the day after a nuke attack on American soil.

Power Line
Romney: I thought Romney was the clear winner, most of all in demeanor and general impact. I’ve been critical of Mitt’s television communication skills in the past, but last night he was Presidential and effective. A viewer who knew nothing about the status of the race would have assumed, I think, that Romney was the front-runner and perhaps the candidate with the most stature. Headlines suggest that the other candidates were ganging up on Romney. I think that is overblown; it happened on only a couple of occasions. On those occasions, I thought Romney came across as the candidate who is trying to rise above pettiness and focus on policy. McCain’s anger toward Romney backfired, I thought. On a number of issues–health care and energy, and even national defense–Romney showed impressive command.

Hugh Hewitt
John McCain seems incapable of not making politics personal and bitter. He also seems unwilling to take responsibility for the immigration fiasco, saying that “the people lost faith in government,” when in fact they overwhelmingly rejected his plan with his name on it. Thus McCain worked himself into a doubly negative corner: an off-putting defensiveness manifesting itself in bitter snideness while refusing to deal with the overwhelming unpopularity of his plan among Republicans.

Dan Riehl
Several media pundits felt multiple attacks on Mitt Romney in last night’s debate were very effective. The Politico’s Jonathan Martin was particularly vocal, forcefully carrying his personal observations over onto Fox News. The edited video below contradicts that interpretation by displaying real time measurements of live viewer reactions to attacks on Romney by both McCain and Huckabee and Romney’s response.

Mary Katharine Ham
McCain: “You can spend your entire fortune on those attack ads, but that still won’t make it true.” Press room: “Oooooh!” Mitt claims he was misquoted by the AP. “That happens from time to time.” McCain: “When you choose different positions from time to time, you’ll get misquoted.” Press room: “Oooooooooooooh!”

Patterico’s Pontifications
John McCain just claimed — again! — that he has never supported amnesty. And he cites Joementum’s recent endorsement of that falsehood as authority for that statement. Gibson is too clueless to confront him with the quote that proves him wrong.

Outside the Beltway
“Change” was the theme of both of last night’s presidential debates in New Hampshire. On the Republican side, it gave John McCain the line of the evening with his rejoinder to Mitt Romney, “We disagree on a lot of issues, but I agree you are the candidate of change.”

Pejman Yousefzadeh
Barack Obama didn’t make any serious mistakes, which means that he won the debate. John Edwards was his usual populist-with-a-smile self; one wonders whether it has finally dawned on him that his candidacy is going nowhere. Hillary Clinton went on about “making change” so much that I was tempted to ask if she could break a $20. Bill Richardson got off a good line about being in hostage negotiations that were more congenial but it was clear from the beginning that he was there just to run for Vice President. He should have just given copies of his resume to Clinton and Obama and then he should have left the stage.

Sister Toldjah
This is the second time in three months that the public has gotten a glimpse into how Hillary reacts when her veneer cracks. Would that they understand that the alternatives to Hillary on the Dem side - Obama and Edwards - are no better and, frankly, have no business trying to lead this country, and via extension the rest of the free world, at a time when it needs continued strength and determination in the face of a vicious enemy, rather than hollow promises about “hope” and “change.”

The end of the line is near for the fringe candidates:

Fox, meanwhile, has invited five GOP candidates to a forum with Chris Wallace scheduled for its mobile studio in New Hampshire on Sunday. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee received invites, leaving Paul of Texas and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California on the sidelines.

Some livid Paul supporters are distributing e-mails calling for a boycott of Fox advertisers.

The mouse that roared…

Update:
Most candidates never get near a single major media debate.

Others Blogging:

Digger’s Realm
I’d like to take this moment to thank the media for restricting the American people’s choices as to who they select to be president. Isn’t there a law about “equal time” and haven’t these media businesses just said they’re going to ignore that law because “they don’t have room on their bus”? Well if they don’t have room for all the candidates, don’t host the debate at all. Let some other reputable media source (oxymoron I know) host the debates instead.

Politico
Already, blogs are alive with cries of “censorship” from Paul’s vocal and prolific followers.

Outside the Beltway
While I don’t think he can win, it’s hard to justify keeping him out of the debates at this early stage of the campaign. At some point, though, the networks are justified in narrowing the field to only the most viable candidates. Whatever value protest candidates might have in bringing light to fringe issues and viewpoints, the point of these “debates” is to help voters chose among the available choices.

Lew Rockwell
The unitary media, which–as Butler Shaffer notes–is part of the ruling regime, regrets ever having Ron Paul in their debates, and they’d like to eliminate him now. However, the results in Iowa will not allow them to do it.

The Carpetbagger Report
After having watched every major debate for both parties’ presidential candidates, I can certainly understand the temptation on the part of organizers to limit participants. The more candidates on the stage, the greater the need for shorter answers and fewer questions. Having said that, this just isn’t kosher.

Tennessee Guerilla Women
Bill O’Reilly, Shepard Smith, Neil Cavuto and Brit Hume are beginning to feel the cyber wrath of the Paulites.

Below the Beltway
The Paul campaign will no doubt stir up some noise over the coming weeks, but it simply isn’t realistic to expect that he will win the Republican nomination for President — anymore than it was realistic to think that when he started this campaign.

Top of The Ticket
The mainstream media — or msm — are a particular target of Paul’s vociferous followers, an eclectic mix of libertarians and disaffected Republicans, Democrats and, until now, non-voters. Outspoken to say the least, they disregard stories like this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one. They believe that major newspapers and broadcast networks have conspired to pay insufficient attention to Dr. Paul, a 72-year-old ob-gyn and 10-term House member, citing his low numbers in polls, which Paulites believe are self-fulfilling frauds designed to cause voters to invest their votes in more traditional candidates with a seemingly more realistic chance of winning.

Hutch Report
Maybe this latest snub by Fox News and potentially ABC television will finally jar Ron Paul loose from the GOP and jump start his Independent candidacy for President where he will at least have a fair chance at success.

Mike the Actuary’s Musings
Early on in the process, it does make sense to have all the contenders on stage, because with that many candidates, anything can happen. However, at some point you probably do need to start pruning the invite list in order to permit longer-format discussion. So, I have to admit, I’m not necessarily bothered with the apparent fact that FOX wants to trim the debate roster. However, I do think the Ron Paul camp has reason to be bothered by the apparent snub.

PoliGazette
Fox has no excuse, no good reason to ban Paul. Lord knows I criticize the Congressman and his supporters often enough, but he shouldn’t be silenced simply because some people (in powerful positions) don’t like his message (which seems to be the real reason why he wasn’t invited).