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Most media commentators agree Thursday night's TV debate was one to forget for Rick Perry, while Mitt Romney was widely judged to have found his groove:

says only Mr Romney looked remotely presidential:

Mitt Romney is easily the best in the field at doing this; he's really the only one up there who seems even remotely well-cast as a presidential candidate. Of the rest, I suppose Rick Santorum shows pretty good statewide-debate-level chops, and Ron Paul certainly has his Ron Paul thing down cold. The other six are just awful at it.

Fox News' Rich Lowry also

It's become clear that Romney has an advantage over Perry in these forums simply because he's more articulate, detailed and authoritative-sounding in his answers; he's like a boxer with a reach advantage.

Of course Romney has vulnerabilities - his aforementioned flip-flops, his Massachusetts health care program - but no one has been able to fully exploit them and Romney has some kind of ready answer for every challenge.

sees a problem for Mr Perry over Texas' in-state tuition for illegal immigrants' children, which provoked boos from the debate audience when he defended the policy:

The more that his rivals attach Mr Perry to an Obama-like policy, the harder it will be for him to convince conservative, Tea Party voters that they should not hold it against him. Can he figure a way out of the immigration box?

Matthew Dowd of ABC News

Rick Perry needs to begin to step up his game and improve as he goes along. He came on the scene strong, but his support has stagnated a bit. While he still leads the polls, he isn't moving anymore. He should stay away from going back and forth every time he gets attacked.

The Daily Beast's Michael Medved goes so far as to ask whether this could be

If two hours of questions and answers produced no decisive winner, they did indicate a clear loser. In his third debate appearance Rick Perry looked and sounded ill-prepared, uncertain, dull, vacuous and embarrassingly out of his depth. Even the Texan's top admirers (and I like him personally and greatly respect his achievements as governor) must cringe at the chilling prospect of a Perry-Obama debate.