Last night's debate did settle one thing for me: I'm not voting for Tom Reilly.

I have no problem with his being aggressive, given that he's in danger of going from first to worst. The problem I had was that his aggression was so often misplaced. Using a question on tax rollbacks to accuse Chris Gabrieli's campaign of leaking a memo about Jean St. Fleur's money problems? It was like the early days of keyword ads, when using a term like "bait and switch" would get you ads for fishing equpiment or electrical supplies.

It was clear that Reilly had some shots to take, but he was too quick on the trigger. The first question put directly to him was about some of his campaign's indecisiveness, a much better platform from which to make an accusation.

(For what it's worth, Gabrieli denies the leak, and the person who supposedly had access to the report denies ever seeing it. She's also not Gabrieli's campaign chair, as Reilly claimed.)

Reilly's tenacity would have worked for him if he had solid ideas to back them up. Instead, he said that voters knew what they were getting in him, which after last night may not be the most comforting thing.

For his part, Gabrieli stayed mostly above the fray. He had the most concrete connection between the big picture and specific ideas and policies. He used humor effectively in a tight spot - deflecting a question about his self-financed campaign by noting that his wife and kids were also curious about the spending - and came off as a bit wonky and endearingly dorky.

Deval Patrick was, not surprisingly, the best in terms of delivery. He was also quick with the jab, as he had some effective responses to Reilly's attacks on his finances. I thought Patrick gave a good summary of his tax position, and came the closest to successfully arguing why we should increase funding to state universities as a way to encourage growth, but was pretty vague about how he planned to pay for everything.

Everyone was vague about the way they'd fund the recently-passed health care plan, which is somewhat understandable. It's a law that, whoever becomes governor, will only bring criticism when it's either underfunded or funded at the expense of other programs. I don't think anyone wants to handle this one until they have to, but it'd have been nice to at least get an idea what the candidates were thinking outside of increasing efficiency and cutting overhead.

In any case, this was probably one of the more successful televised political debates in recent memory, in that it helped make distinctions between candidates. Perhaps too many, if you're Tom Reilly.