As its name would suggest, Sunday night’s “roundtable” on Fox News with (most of) the Republican presidential candidates was supposed to be intimate (a “discussion” was the word) and easygoing. While it was the most intimate yet, at least in physical proximity — candidates were positioned so close around the too-small table that they nearly bumped elbows — the atmosphere was less than easygoing.

After his pile-on beating in Saturday’s ABC News debate, where everyone but Ron Paul took potshots at him, Mitt Romney came out swinging Sunday, landing blows on Mike Huckabee, who routed the former governor in the Iowa caucuses, and Sen. John McCain, the leader in the polls in New Hampshire, where the first primary begins tomorrow.

Romney’s first came just minutes into the evening. Moderator Chris Wallace asked him about his tax increases in Massachusetts. They were “fees,” he said, and anyway . . . McCain “voted against President Bush’s tax cuts.”

McCain looked tired and sedate, with mercifully fewer of his apropos-of-nothing Romney attacks from Saturday night after the media dinged his antics as “puerile.” Romney played that to his advantage, cracking that he accomplished in four years what McCain’s been trying to do in Washington for 20. A slightly peeved response followed from McCain that he’s done what he did “not for profit, but for patriotism.”

Romney swung hard at Huckabee during another exchange about taxes that only ended when Wallace stepped in. Neither candidate has ideal credentials to anti-tax groups like the Club for Growth, but Huckabee’s taken the most flak: He enacted 94 tax cuts that sliced tax revenues by $378 million during his decade-plus tenure as Arkansas governor, but presided over a net increase of $500 million.

Romney demanded that Huckabee deny this. Huckabee evaded, saying first that he lowered certain taxes, then that he “raised jobs.” “Facts are stubborn things,” a satisfied Romney replied. “You make up facts faster than you talk, and that’s saying something.”

Largely pushed to the periphery by the Romney-Huckabee-McCain trio of newsmakers, Fred Thompson still had a strong night, most pundits agree, looking wonkish on issues like Social Security. Still leading in most national polls, Rudy Giuliani, others say, got a bad rub from Fox News; Wallace asked him a “baggage” question right at the end about whether the ignominy of his former police commissioner Bernie Kerik, indicted on federal charges of tax fraud in 2007, also tainted him. “Why ask that question at this point of the campaign, except to bring up the baggage?” notes ABC News’s Rick Klein. The ticker at bottom of the screen also flashed, irrelevantly, that America’s Mayor lives with his “current wife,” an observation it didn’t make of the two other divorcés at the table.

Ron Paul, meanwhile, was cold-shouldered, shut out somewhat inexplicably; debate organizers said only candidates polling in double digits were invited, so some had to go. Paulites went up in arms because their man finished fifth in the Iowa caucuses, in front of Rudy Giuliani. A steady stream picketed outside with signs like “Boycott Fox News.”

During the final pre-New Hampshire debate on Jan. 6, the GOP candidates made some bold claims — particularly with regard to their individual records on taxes. But Annenberg Political FactCheck says their statements may tax the truth:

• Huckabee repeated his claim to have made 94 tax cuts including the “first broad-based tax cut” in the history of Arkansas, though he actually signed tax bills that resulted in a net increase in taxes of $500 million.
• Romney said his increases in “fees” only amounted to $240 million in Massachusetts. But his own administration and others have put them higher. He also failed to mention $174 million in corporate tax “loophole” closings.
• Giuliani falsely claimed that one of his tax cuts more than paid for itself, and he generally used incorrect figures when boasting of his record on taxes in New York City. And he claimed credit for too large a reduction in welfare cases.
• Thompson said, “I never said that I was cutting Social Security.” That’s true, but he is proposing to slow the growth of benefits to those who retire in the future.
• McCain said he had never asked for a single “pork barrel project” for Arizona, but we find a few that could qualify for that characterization.

Click here for the full analysis.

Did you watch the Republican debate last night?  Reuters says there were fireworks, which may only mean that it wasn’t as boring as past debates.

The CNN/YouTube debate was as close to a free-for-all as can be expected at such events. The candidates did not shy away from open confrontations with each other and the questions were submitted by the public on videotape.

Some of the better exchanges from the evening include:

ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE, on whether Jesus would use the death penalty: “Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office.”