If nothing else, last night's Republican presidential debate will certainly narrow the field. Those who have no shot: Duncan Hunter, Jim Gilmore, Tommy Thompson, Sam Brownback, and Tom Tancredo. They represent the fringe of the fringe. Mitt Romney will probably last until The Final Three, but only because he's such great television.

Let's get more specific. Gilmore said nothing memorable the entire evening. Brownback made it clear that he would pardon Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Thompson, venturing into some private Twilight Zone, promised to employ George W. Bush as a "youth ambassador," sending him out "to lecture about honesty and integrity." And Hunter brought some unwelcome levity to his discussion of the Secure Fence Act: "If they get across my fence, we sign 'em up for the Olympics! Immediately!" In a heated segment on immigration reform, the punch line was perfectly timed, but nobody laughed. I think we were all a little unsure about whether or not we were supposed to. And that pretty much sums up the overall tone of the debate. All night the candidates lobbed soft ones, and nobody was there to catch them.

Tancredo's blooper was a little more complicated. During the discussion of English as America's "official language," he said: "We're testing whether or not we will actually survive as a nation. Whether we can actually hold together--and hold onto something called the English language. We are becoming a bilingual nation and that is not good." I can't decide if I'm more afraid because he's a segregationist, or because he's unaware that we are a nation of many languages, not just two.

As a Democratic observer of last night's debate, I find myself at much more of a loss than I could have imagined. There was some humor in the discussion, but there was also horror. Specifically: when moderator Wolf Blitzer asked the ten candidates whether they would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran, only one--Ron Paul--said no.

We're in the middle of a war that few Americans like or want to continue, and these guys can't take a drink of water without talking about getting us into another one. And a nuclear war at that! Think about what supporting one of these candidates would mean: you're pulling the lever for vaporization. Is that a viable choice?

Honestly, if I was a Republican, I'd vote for John McCain. You can't fake sincerity like his. And the senator from Arizona had a good night, even if his heart doesn't seem to be in it anymore, and even if he was browbeaten for his bipartisan immigration bill. To his credit, he rallied and came away with the most emotionally powerful moment of the evening. Regarding Spanish--my native language, and one much maligned by Rep. Tancredo--McCain said: "[This is] a language which has enriched my state. My friends, I want you, the next time you're down in Washington DC, to go to the Vietnam War Memorial and look at the names engraved in black granite. You'll find a whole lot of Hispanic names. If you go to Iraq today you'll see a lot of folks with Hispanic names. These are people who love this country so much they're willing to sacrifice for it. Let's, from time to time, remember that these are God's children."

The South By Southwest Film Festival is widely considered to be one of the top showcases for documentary film in North America, and if we're to take the 2007 lineup as an indicator of general trends, then there is currently no hotter nonfiction genre than the election movie. The Festival (which began last Friday and runs concurrently with the famed SXSW Music Conference through March 18) is screening at least five feature films focused on elections. An inordinate amount of attention has already been bestowed on just one of SXSW 2007's election films, the Michael Moore expose Manufacturing Dissent. But while that production by Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine offers an undeniably alluring behind-the-scenes peek at the documentary world's biggest blowhard, another SXSW election doc has managed to embroil pop culture notables as disparate as Alec Baldwin and Jello Biafra in a massive smear against the most powerful man in California.

That film is Running With Arnold, directed by former entertainment reporter Dan Cox. The doc tracks Arnold Schwarzenegger's wild ride from Austrian yokel to world-class bodybuilder--and then from action superstar to titan of Sacramento. The film is comprised of old interviews with Arnold, new interviews with Arnold's detractors, clips from Arnold's movies, and footage shot during the whirlwind recall election that first put him in office. It's an extremely entertaining piece of propaganda, one which seems content to settle for knowing laughs from the choir in lieu of offering the kind of hard analysis that might actually convert skeptics.

Cox identifies Schwarzenegger's Achilles heel early on, with a clip from an ancient archival interview in which the young bodybuilder describes his unquenchable thirst for attention. As Cox tells it, a defining moment came while Schwarzenegger was serving in the Austrian military. He went AWOL in order to enter a bodybuilding competition, and when he returned to his unit, he was promptly thrown in jail. Not for the first time, the future Governator chose physical vanity and personal stardom over national duty. No doubt this is a dubious personality trait, and an embarrassing anecdote. But like most of the revelations in Running With Arnold, it's hardly the kind of thing that will make a dent in Schwarzenegger's career.