I watched it for an hour with my 2 rommates: a 19 year old co-op student and a guy who proudly swears he's never voted. The kid is voting conservative, my guess is he thinks Martin is old and busted and Harper is the new coolnesss. I had to point out which is our PM, which is the NDP guy, which is the Bloc guy, which is Harper. I ask the kid if he noticed how Layton looks like the guy from those "learn how to use a computer" informecials, we have a good laugh. Ahhh, subtle political indoctrination of the young is one of the joys of advancing age. Anyhoo, we also laughed as Martin got pummelled left and right, pun intended. Martin scored a knockdown versus Harper on Iraq. Layton scored with about a million Canadians saddled with student debt when he accused Martin's of defeating the defecit on the backs of students, he should hammer Martin more on this. Harper was cool and composed. The question undecided voters are asking is "Can this guy (be it Harper, Martin, or Layton) be Prime Minister?" I watched a bit of the french debate too and I think Harper comes out of the debates as a marginal winner, meaning he made Martin look so bad he'll pick up a percent or two.. Duceppe kept hammering Martin on corruption, no surprise there. Layton performed very well, though I think he looks a tad too ... excited, I guess is the word, which is part of his image I guess and not necessarily bad. He can worry about appearing prime ministerial later if his party picks up a bunch of seats in the election.