• The transcript of last night's Republican debate on PBS is available here.

• With the top four Republicans skipping this debate, which was dedicated to minority issues, viewers got a great chance to check out the second tier (Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback), the third tier (Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo), and — skipping the vacant fifth and sixth tiers — the seventh tier (Alan Keyes).

• Overall, Huckabee really shined in this environment, and was in many ways the real winner of the event.

• The six candidate who showed up all lambasted the no-shows to various degrees, with Mike Huckabee saying he was "ashamed" of the Republican Party for this, and Ron Paul quipping that he was there for the simple reason that he was invited, and he's glad to show up where people invite him. Sam Brownback offered black voters offended by the no-shows an easy way to get back at them: Register Republican, and vote in their primary for one of the six candidate who did show up.

• Right off the bat, talk-radio host Tom Joyner got in a jab at the four Republican no-shows. "And let me take a moment right here and now to say hello to those of you viewing from home," Joyner said. "Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Senator John McCain. Governor Mitt Romney. And Senator Fred Thompson. Well, you know, I had to call them out."

• This might shock some readers, but Tom Tancredo argued that he was the most racially progressive among them, on the question of showing up for debates: "I must admit to you that it is pleasurable and a little bit different to be in this kind of an environment with my colleagues who are here, because the last time I was at an event of this nature, it was the NAACP convention and I was the only Republican that showed up."

• The main thrust of the candidates' arguments was that a focus on security, individual freedom and traditional values will help blacks because such an approach helps all people — and would be far superior to the welfare-state dependency offered by the Democrats.

• The candidates all took a strong stance against illegal immigration, arguing that wages in the black community were being depressed by competition from illegal labor, hurting not only average workers but also small businessmen who want to play by the rules.

• On health care, the candidates said that deregulation would better enable the poor to be able to afford health care, and allow for the return of family doctors, individual decision-making and personal responsibility.

• Huckabee said that as president, he would hope to reform the justice system, "so that you don't have a different sentence for a 17-year-old kid caught with a lid of marijuana than you do some upper-middle-class white kid who gets caught with cocaine. He goes to rehab, and the black kid goes to prison for 10 years."

• Despite the strong social conservative strain within the black community, only one candidate — Mike Huckabee — mentioned his opposition to abortion in stark terms. When asked about Darfur, Huckabee responded: "I think we have some role to play in it, but I guess what disturbs me even more, we have not even addressed the genocide that's going on and the infanticide in our own country with the slaughter of millions of unborn children."

• Sam Brownback also mentioned his pro-life stance, but only in the most oblique terms after he was asked about the death penalty: "We need a culture of life in the United States, a culture that recognizes every life at every stage. It's beautiful, it's unique, it's a child of a loving God, period."

• Ron Paul argued against an intervention in Darfur by the American government: "There's no moral authority. There's plenty of moral authority and responsibility for individuals to participate. But every time we get involved, no matter where, for good intentions, believe me, we're getting involved in a civil war."

• Huckabee argued for a change in emphasis on drug problems, with more concern about treatment for addicts. "We've got to quit locking up all the people that we're mad at and lock up the people that we're really afraid of, the people who are sexual predators and violent offenders," he said. "But the nonsense of three strikes and you're out has created a system that is overrun with people, and the cost is choking us. I would go for more drug courts and for a lot less incarceration of drug-addicted people."

• Ron Paul did him one better, calling the whole drug war racist and unfair. "For instance, Blacks make up 14 percent of those who use drugs, yet 36 percent of those arrested are Blacks and it ends up that 63 percent of those who finally end up in prison are Blacks," he said. "This has to change. We don't have to have more courts and more prisons. We need to repeal the whole war on drugs. It isn't working."

• The discussion of Congressional representation for the District of Columbia was a mess. Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback fully endorsed amending the Constitution to give District residents a say in their government, but other than that the candidates handled it in some truly atrocious ways.

• On the subject of D.C. representation, Tancredo gave a flawed endorsement of retrocession as a way to solve the problem, saying that "the portion that was ceded to the federal government by Virginia should go back to Virginia, the portion that was ceded by Maryland should go back to Maryland." The original portion of the District that was ceded by Virginia was retroceded back to Virginia in 1847, leaving the modern District to come entirely from Maryland.

• Duncan Hunter changed the subject. "You know, I might be a little more open to statehood for D.C. if they would allow their citizens to be able to keep and bear arms in their houses to protect their safety," he said. "And I offered that amendment a couple of years ago. It passed and when it passed, the Democrats brought down the entire crime bill rather than let D.C. residents have the right to keep and bear arms."

• Alan Keyes was perhaps the worst. "That's a city that's supposed to belong to the nation, not to any one group and not to any one region. That's why it was put together in the first place. I think it's terribly important to maintain that symbol of the unity of our country," he said. "We're a free people. If folks don't want to live in the conditions that prevail in Washington because of its unique status, they can go to Maryland. A whole bunch of folks have done so."