Ready or not - here they come

The Republicans had their first presidential debate last night (MSNBC, 8:00 - 9:30). I really have no idea on who I would vote for if the election was today so the debate was very informative and helpful for me at least even though it was on MSNBC and the moderator was mega liberal Chris Matthews. One thing that really bugged me thought was the terrible questions for the candidates such as the one given to Mitt Romney "what do you dislike most about America?" Come on...
My rankings of the candidates that I believe helped themselves in the debate and some really didn't are below:

Improved their status

Mitt Romney - looked presidential, said the right things most of the time, didn't mess up.

Mike Huckabee - did better then the rest of the non top three candidates.

(former Virginia Gov) Jim Gilmore - maybe it's just me, but I had no idea that he was even running and I thought he did a great job in the debate. He'll hang around for a while and maybe get a shot at being a VP on a ticket.

Too Close to Call/A little up, a little down...

Duncan Hunter - not much notable here, in fact I can't even remember that he was in the debate...

Ron Paul - really he's just running as a Republican to set up himself as the libertarian presidential candidate in 2008.

Rudy Giuliani -weak on abortion answers but no surprise there.

Sam Brownback - started slow but ended well.

Hurt Chances

John McCain - yelling and finger pointing made him look old and angry.

Tommy Thompson - didn't really have a great speaking style and even though he had some good answers and ideas, he didn't look like he would be the right guy to carry them out as president.

Tom Tancredo - when nobody knows who you are in the first place you really have to blow everyone out of the water. Tancredo stumbled early on his answers and then got hurt by Chris Matthews mercilessly cutting him off late in the debate.