Let’s start with the overnight ratings for the Bloomberg debate. Only about 300,000 people watched it on TV. That’s a third of the audience for the 2006 gubernatorial debate in Dallas. Last night might as well only have taken place for political insiders. So let’s dispense with any talk that Rick Perry’s performance last night was his swan song. If anything, last night was the beginning of a long second act.

What happened yesterday?

1. The conventional wisdom was that Mitt Romney, who still can’t top 25%, was the presumptive front-runner after he landed Gov. Chris Christie’s endorsement. Then Romney proceeded to go out on stage and very smoothly and professionally take a massive crap in his pants. Romney said he would support another bailout to support the currency but not to create jobs. In fact, he said he opposed the auto industry bailout, which has not only saved the auto industry in this country but prevented us from having to sell Michigan to Canada on layaway. Clearly, Romney thinks hewing towards the center means espousing wildly unpopular and wrongheaded ideas. Add to that his condescending “I’m not finished! I’m not finished!” and you have the very model of a modern major frontrunner who can’t finish.
2. “Rock you like a” Herman Cain had his day in the sun, and the light revealed him to be a black Ross Perot rather than the friendly black man the Tea Party currently imagines him to be. Yes, Cain said nice things about Alan Greenspan. This is heresy to the modern Republican Party, but what do you expect from a former member of the Federal Reserve Board? Even worse was Michele Bachmann pantsing his 9-9-9 plan as a new federal consumption tax that won’t pass muster with the Teavangelical wing. Last night began Cain’s inevitable descent from first place into a paid gig at Fox News.
3. Then you had Rick Perry. He’s the only one besides Romney with the resources to put together a real ground operation in Iowa, much less in other states as well. And Perry is the only one who can become the anti-Romney. He stayed on message, didn’t give Saturday Night Live any new ammo, and generally escaped without sustaining further damage to his hull. For this, the pundits decreed it a disaster for him. But what drew less notice was Perry feeling his way around a Romneycare-begat-Obamacare attack that now has real legs. Romney’s response was, essentially, that Romneycare is working. This defense won’t work, and eventually Perry will draw real blood, but these are the early rounds of this fight.

Oh, wait. Yeah. Those guys. What can you say? The former governor of Utah told a fart joke. Michele Bachmann told a devil joke. Newt joked about jailing cabinet officials. And Rick Santorum continued to surprise everyone by appearing periodically on screen.

Here’s my blink-and-you-miss it appearance on the local ABC station this evening. While I was giving my interview, I got the idea that last night was a dress rehearsal for the real show to come. Watch for Romney to continue to fail as the fake frontrunner, Cain to prove unable to lead, and Perry to fight his way back into a two-man race. Settle in. This should take a while.