This debate ran hot and cold — some fiery, fascinating, revealing exchanges among the leading candidates, interrupted by long stretches of the underdogs trying to get attention, and generally failing, by offering reheated servings of their offerings in previous debates.
The first headline of the night came with Ted Cruz’s methodical dismantling of Trump’s he’s Canadian/he’s ineligible argument. With the cool precision of a bomb squad technician, Cruz made Donald Trump look shifty and dishonest in his accusation, and gleefully pointed out that if the standard for natural-born requires two American citizen parents — has anyone seriously argued for that? — then Cruz, Rubio, Jindal and Trump himself would be ineligible. Ted Cruz does his homework, knows all the arguments backwards and forwards, and — gah, it kills me to write this!— unflappably executes his playbook with a methodical, Belichick-like precision, adjusting for whatever the defense throws at him. Cruz fans like to boast their man would mop the floor with Hillary Clinton, and tonight, that boast seemed more credible. At the risk of sounding like Mel Kiper Jr., tonight Cruz demonstrated great anticipation and quickness.
But . . . in one of the great unexpected twists of the night, Trump came back against Cruz on the “New York values” argument. Out of all the problems with Trump, it’s rather foolish to use geography against him, and while invoking 9/11 could seem maudlin on clumsier hands, when the loud, bombastic Trump speaks more softly, from the heart about his home city, it struck just the right note. Trump had a pretty good night, justifying his anger over the state of the country. His plan for tariffs on Chinese goods might be economic suicide, but I’ll bet to the ears of laymen who are instinctively distrustful of China it sounded like a reasonable form of retaliation.
Marco Rubio had another good night, a little caffeinated at the beginning, but hitting his points and playing to his strengths. A lot of people liked Rubio’s exchange with Cruz on immigration, countering that Cruz flip-flops and changes his position. (Why did this topic get discussed after 11 p.m. Eastern?) In the end, Rubio is going to be perceived as the more pro-immigration candidate and Cruz the more anti-immigration one. Can “you’re a flip-flopper” sufficiently deflect attacks on a position that is fundamentally unpopular among the GOP grassroots right now?
Chris Christie is still a natural on television, but he showed some irritating slipperiness. He shouted to President Obama “we’re gonna kick your rear end out of the White House!” . . . to a president who’s term-limited. (Where was this intense desire to evict Obama in, say, October 2012, when Christie was praising Obama’s work in the hurricane response?) Christie also said he had never donated to Planned Parenthood, and either he’s lying now or he was lying back in 1994 when he said he did make personal donations to the group.
Jeb Bush had some better moments tonight, including making some good points about how Trump’s keep-all-the-Muslims-out plan will alienate Muslim allies and people whose help we need in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaeda and other jihadists. It’s hard to see how anything that happened tonight really changes his standing, though.
Ben Carson . . . just hasn’t done the homework on the two biggest topics in the debate, national security and economics. Too often, he relied on non-answers like, “What we need to do is get a group of experts together . . .” He’s a nice, bright man, who really seemed to need a question on stereotactic craniotomy to get rolling.
John Kasich remains a really annoying, preachy, malfunctioning automaton who serves as the natural bathroom break opportunity for those committed to watching the whole debate.
Cruz's Cool Demeanor Wins on a Hot-and-Cold Debate Night