Instead of adding my opinions to the already overflowing and mostly useless river of commentary declaring "winners and losers" from last night, let me take an altogether different angle.

Fox News has broadcast three debates thus far - May 15 in Spartanburg, South Carolina; September 5 in Durham, New Hampshire; and last night in Orlando, Florida. Since the Democrats went forward with their boycott of the network back in March, all three Fox debates have been among the Republican candidates. They've also been three of the most interesting and informative debates of the entire race thus far - last night especially so with moderators Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Wendell Goler and Carl Cameron opening the broadcast by actively encouraging the top-tier candidates to take shots at each other.

And the candidates did in fact mix it up with a rather sharp discussion of the finer (aka liberal) points of each other's records. It certainly made for compelling television, though I'm not exactly sure who was helped (or hurt) most by the exchange.

While the crowded GOP field can use this sort of engagement, it struck me that the Democrats - particularly John Edwards and Barack Obama - are the ones who could really benefit from the kind of free-fire zone the Fox moderators induced last night. Perhaps the moderators of the next Democratic debate will follow the Fox example and Edwards and Obama will get their chance.