Take That!

There were moments during Tuesday night's GOP presidential debate in South Carolina when you had to wonder: Are these guys running for president or merely aiming to be king of the one-liner?

After the somewhat mediocre face-off between the candidates two weeks ago at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, it appears some White House hopefuls have decided that comedy is perhaps the best route to gaining the momentum necessary to win the party's nomination in 2008.

Take Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is extremely popular among GOP conservatives but has struggled to rise above his status as a second-tier candidate in the race. Two weeks ago, Huckabee delivered a solid, if not very memorable, performance at the first debate.

But on Tuesday, Huckabee had the line of the night when criticizing Washington's handling of spending issues. "We've had a Congress that's spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop," Huckabee declared, referring to the Democratic presidential hopeful's widely joked about $400 haircuts.

After the debate, Huckabee insisted his line, which prompted hysterical laughter and applause from the live audience in South Carolina, had been totally impromptu. "I just blurted it out," he told NEWSWEEK. "I just do that sometimes. I could just feel my wife cringing." Rehearsed or not, the line clearly helped Huckabee gain some priceless earned media in the postdebate coverage—no easy task in a crowd of 10 GOP presidential hopefuls in what has been the largely circuslike atmosphere of the debates. But Huckabee wasn't the only one hoping to be king of the zing on Tuesday night.

The second GOP debate, cosponsored by the South Carolina Republican Party and Fox News Channel, seemed to be all about one-liners and digs at other candidates—partly because the Fox moderators seemed intent on making the event less boring than its predecessor. But it was also because the candidates, especially those in the second tier, seemed intent on rising to the occasion—something they failed to do last time but only moderately accomplished last night.