And the loser is ... Hillary Clinton.
That's how Republicans cast their debate on Sunday night, when they were not feuding with one another in their most direct and contentious exchanges yet.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani used humor to hit Clinton, exclaiming, "You gotta be kidding!" when asked if he differs with her abortion and gay rights.
"There are two things I agree with Hillary Clinton on. First of all, we're both Yankee fans," he said to laughter, referring to the New York baseball team.
"Well, wait a second -- I became a Yankee fan growing up in New York. She became a Yankee fan growing up in Chicago," he said of the former first lady, who moved to New York to run for the Senate in 2000.
Then Giuliani quoted her as saying, "I have a million ideas; America cannot afford them all."
"I'm not making it up," he said to more laughter. "No kidding, Hillary -- America can't afford you."
Relaxed, smiling and conversational, Giuliani reinforced his image as a front-runner much as he does on the campaign trail, by disparaging the Democratic New York senator and former first lady as much as he criticizes other Republicans.
"He's got that riff down well, and it was really funny and very effective," Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. "Don't underestimate the value of experience in these forums -- he's obviously a bright man and has gotten very comfortable."
Clinton makes an easy target among Republicans, despite, or perhaps because of, her lead in polls against Republican contenders. The audience of more than 3,300 party faithful cheered at every Clinton line in the debate, which was sponsored by Fox News Channel and the Florida Republican Party.
"Scoring points on Hillary in this group -- hell, that's like a 5-foot basket. You're just dropping the ball in," said David Johnson, a Tallahassee political strategist and former head of the Florida Republican Party.
Mitt Romney, dominant in polling in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, challenged Clinton's experience.
"She hasn't run a corner store. She hasn't run a state. She hasn't run a city. She has never run anything," the former Massachusetts governor said.
The biggest applause line of the night, delivered by Senator John McCain, also came at Clinton's expense. McCain, a foe of congressional spending, mentioned Clinton's effort to spend US$1 million on a Woodstock Museum to commemorate perhaps the most famous counterculture event of the 1960s.
"Now, my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event," McCain said.
"I was tied up at the time," he deadpanned, and the audience rose, applauding the reference to McCain's years as a Vietnam prisoner of war.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist known for his folksy one-liners, said: "Look, I like to be funny. There's nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president."
When they were not focused on Clinton, the candidates emphasized their conservative credentials, putting Giuliani and Romney on the spot.
Former Senator Fred Thompson said: "Mayor Giuliani believes in federal funding for abortion. He believes in sanctuary cities. He's for gun control. He supported Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat, against a Republican who was running for governor, then opposed the governor's tax cuts when he was there."
Thompson also mentioned Romney's 1994 campaign against Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, when Romney cast himself as a defender of a woman's right to abortion, an issue on which Romney has changed his mind.
"Actually, Mitt, I didn't know there was any room to the left of Ted Kennedy," Thompson quipped.
Thompson was confident and easygoing, and quick to defend himself when Giuliani questioned his own conservative credentials. Giuliani called Thompson the "single biggest obstacle" in the Senate to curbing frivolous lawsuits.
Thompson responded by saying it's a matter of federalism, the concept of power divided between national and state government. "Local issues belong at the state level. Most states have passed tort reform," he said.
Thompson even managed a graceful response to a question about whether, as some critics have suggested, he is lazy. He described his trajectory from teenage father to factory worker to federal prosecutor and Watergate counsel and finally to the Senate, and he mentioned his help since then shepherding Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' nomination through Congress.
"If a man can do all that and be lazy, I recommend it to everybody," he said to laughter and applause.
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
HAZARDOUS CONDITION: The typhoon’s sheer size, with winds extending 443km from its center, slowed down the ability of responders to help communities, an official said The US Coast Guard was searching for six people after losing contact with their disabled boat off the coast of Guam following Typhoon Sinlaku. The crew of the 44m dry cargo vessel, the US-registered Mariana, on Wednesday notified the coast guard that the boat had lost its starboard engine and needed assistance, Petty Officer 3rd Class Avery Tibbets said yesterday. The coast guard set up a one-hour communication schedule with the vessel, but lost contact on Thursday. A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft was launched to search for the six people on board, but it had to return to Guam because of
RSS