Questions voters need to ask

Kristina Cook writes,

Who holds our line? That's the question you need to ask.

Who will hold the conservative line? Who has gone to the trenches already? Who has borne the slings and arrows of being a conservative - actually, a Conservative, capitalized - throughout his career? Who has done battle for our principles? Who is willing to lay it down to make it happen?

And who has used the government because he "had to"? Who has bought politicians, because "that's how business is done"? Who has used eminent domain instead of the free market? Who has made a fortune by using the government?
Which one will turn on us the second he is in office? And which one has proven already that he stands for what we stand for?
Those are the questions you need to ask.

Mormons, evangelicals come through for Cruz

David Wasserman writes in Five Thirty Eight,

Tonight’s likely result of a split verdict — Trump winning Arizona and Cruz stomping him in Utah — would seem to suggest a close fight between the two from here on out. But the problem for Cruz is the same one we’ve been talking about for over a month: There just aren’t a ton of great states for him later in the calendar. Almost every state with a high share of evangelical Protestants have already voted, and the two states with the highest shares of Mormons — Trump’s worst group by a mile — will have already voted after tonight (Idaho and Utah).

In fact, between now and June, the only states left where more than 3-in-10 residents are either evangelical Protestants or Mormons are Indiana (32 percent), Montana (32 percent), Oregon (33 percent) and West Virginia (41 percent). Together, these states account for just 146 of the 905 delegates at stake in remaining contests. And, West Virginia is probably Trump’s prototypical state, not Cruz’s. To me, these are the most damning statistics when it comes to Cruz’s bid to prevent Trump from winning 1,237 delegates.

He might have eaten all their livers already

John Podhoretz writes in the New York Post,

...the man Republicans want for their tribune in 2016 is a disgusting jerk they somehow believe will have their backs when the only back he’s ever had is his own.

...So you want to know how Jeb did? His best debate yet. And Marco Rubio? He was sensational. Did what he had to do. Got off the mat and got himself back in the fight. Winner on points. Ted Cruz was mostly off his game, but still had very good moments. John Kasich too, trying to play the “I’m positive” candidate. (Ben Carson? Whatever.)

So what. I’d like to believe that what they did and how they performed matters. But hard experience over the past nine months tells me different. This debate was about Trump, not about them. He made sure of that, as usual.

He interrupts, he yells over them, he insults them, he goes over his allotted time, and the whirlwind he creates turns into a vacuum that sucks all the air out of the place and right into his attention-whore lungs.

...Jeb Bush tussled with Trump, but at one point he said it was okay for Trump to denigrate him but he should leave Jeb’s family alone. And right there, he proved Trump right in the terms in which Trump sees the world—the Donald strong, the Jeb weak.

Alas, just as you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, you can’t bring disapprobation to a showdown with Hannibal Lecter and hope to survive. You have to eat his liver with fava beans and a good chianti before he eats yours. How? How the hell do I know? But I’m not running for president. They are.

And the thing is, he might have eaten all their livers already.

Normal rules versus Trump rules

At National Review Rich Lowry has a few remarks about Saturday's Republican debate:

I feel like we’re back in the pre-Iowa period when no one could figure out whether Donald Trump skipping the Iowa debate would hurt him — by the normal rules, of course it would hurt him; by the Trump rules, it wouldn’t make a difference and might even help (by demonstrating strength).

By the normal rules, Trump’s embracing a blood libel about George W. Bush (he knew there were no WMD in Iraq), saying Planned Parenthood does great things, and often swinging wildly and angrily would hurt him a week out from a primary in Bush-friendly, hawkish, socially conservative South Carolina.

But we’ll see. Certainly Trump’s behavior reinforces the idea that he’s disrupter and not just another politician, and Republican voters might not mind so much that one of the candidates is outspokenly anti–Iraq war (even if he takes it too far). Trump continues to be able to interrupt everyone else with impunity and act the Big Man on stage, with no one really able or willing to assert themselves against him.

Jeb is trying the hardest. He continues to improve — he seems a bit more relaxed and authoritative every debate — and did better against Trump than ever before. But some of his strongest moments were defending his family, and although that is honorable, I’m not sure how much that gets him. He has still not figured out how to clearly best Trump, even when he has the better of the argument.

Rubio was very good. A little sharper, a little more conversational. He probably got in more telling jabs against Trump in the Iraq debate than Bush did (although I doubt anyone cares much that Bush was enforcing U.N. resolutions). More importantly for Rubio’s purposes, he clashed with Cruz and showed he could throw punches in real time after the New Hampshire debate. If Rubio had hit back at Chris Christie this way, the trajectory of the race might look different.

Cruz had strong moments, of course, especially on Scalia and the Supreme Court. But it looked like he basically wanted to duck Trump again, which is kind of amazing given that he can’t win South Carolina without Trump getting taken down several notches. In the one exchange with Trump, Cruz seemed to shrink a bit, and it was awkward for him that both Trump and Rubio waved the bloody flag of Ben Carson in Iowa, more or less a non-scandal that is very useful to his opponents.

Kasich continues to get to narrowcast for his audience.

Trump the big loser so far tonight

Time for the first commercial break in tonight's debate. Five Republicans debating against one progressive Democrat businessman casino owner. Trump's worst debate so far. Blaming George W. Bush for 9-11! He is out-doing Barack Hussein Obama!

Cruz and Trump: call a temporary cease fire!

So now we have confirmation: It's a three-way race for the 2016 GOP nomination. Cruz walks out of Iowa with 8 delegates to the Republican convention in Cleveland this summer, Trump with 7, and Rubio with 6.

I was so glad to be able to listen to Laura Ingraham this morning before shoveling snow and heading off to work. Laura is warning Cruz and Trump to knock off going after each other. The media is trumpeting last night as a victory for Rubio. Senators Scott and Gardner are urging Republicans to unite behind Rubio.

But Laura Ingraham is reminding us that even though Rubio won election in Florida describing himself as a conservative, he has been anything but that as a senator. He has joined with Chuck Schumer in the Gang of Eight push for Amnesty for illegals, and still has not made up his mind about whether to support the Trans Pacific Partnership bill (TPP).

Laura says the TPP is a push for global government, decreasing American sovereignty, and that the average American worker will get hosed by it. It gives an international tribunal power to hurt Americans by issuing penalties on American businesses.

Laura said that after the Iowa caucuses in 2008 she offered the same advice to Santorum and Gingrich that she is offering to Cruz and Trump today. Neither could put aside their egos to do that, and the result was a nonconservative (Romney) exploited their battles to become the candidate. Now the media focuses on any insults Cruz or Trump give each other, giving Rubio a clear shot at moving to the front of the pack.

Is it a three man race?

Image by © Chuck Burton/AP/Corbis

Jonathan S. Tobin writes at Commentary,

Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate didn’t change the basic standings of the race. Donald Trump, who had his best debate so far, will remain on top of the national polls. But the main takeaway is that the Fox Business Channel show gave us a preview of what the GOP contest will look like once the lesser candidates get winnowed out by the early caucus and primaries. Though some of the others on the periphery of the stage such as Chris Christie had their moments, the debate showed that it’s clearly a three-man race for the nomination. Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio were not merely the best debaters but were central to the unfolding drama in a way that the others weren’t. With the titanic duels between Trump and Cruz and Cruz and Rubio dominating the highlights, it’s hard to see how any of the others can get the traction or the attention they need to break out.

Had the debate ended after one hour, Cruz would have walked away the winner. The Texas senator demolished Trump on the question of his eligibility for the presidency. While Trump has had his shaky moments in the earlier debates, this was the first time any of his serious rivals faced him down so completely. Cruz was prepared and scored a knockdown. Trump’s lame insinuations and admission that that the only reason he brought up the bogus issue was his rival’s rise in the polls left him looking foolish in a way that previous dustups with Jeb Bush or Carly Fiorina had not.

But Trump recovered in the last half of the debate with an even more devastating body slam of Cruz over the latter’s snide putdown of “New York values.” Though Cruz’s calculated snipe at the Big Apple was probably poll-tested in Iowa, Trump’s pitch perfect response citing the values of the first responders and the clean up crews on 9/11 was nothing short of devastating leaving the senator shame-faced and speechless.



Also performing well was Marco Rubio, who came out swinging on national defense policy and never slowed up. Though he didn’t have a highlight moment to equal either of the Donald-Trump dustups, he scored throughout the night, especially at Cruz’s expense. In one counter-punch late in the debate, he got off what Cruz counted as 11 sharp jabs at his fellow freshman senator. That was a good moment for him. So, too, was his moment of clarity when he explained why Cruz’s embrace of a value-added tax (VAT) was not conservative and that his boasts about shutting down the IRS was nonsensical since someone would have to collect the taxes he would impose.

Though Cruz knocked questions about the two main attacks on him in the last week — Trump’s birther smear and a misleading New York Times story about a loan to his 2012 Senate campaign — out of the park, if all the country remembers from the evening were those highlight moments, he’ll look more like a loser than a winner. In that way, a very strong performance may turn out to be less impressive than it might otherwise have been.

As for the rest of the field, as always Christie had his moments when he scored on security or on entitlements. But his condescending scolding of Rubio and Cruz, when they were having a serious exchange about tax policy as merely senators talking, was ill-considered. After six debates, his boasts about his fight against terrorism as a prosecutor and insistence that only governors should be elected president are getting tired. The same conclusion applies to John Kasich’s endless recitation of his resume. Neither Christie nor Kasich realize that in this election cycle what voters want is passion and vision, not experience.

Jeb Bush didn’t have a bad night but neither did he make much of an impact. His one good moment was when he engaged Trump on his ban of all Muslims, but Bush still has not learned how to close an attack. It always feels artificial and forced, even when he’s got the facts on his side. Though he has enough money to go on sliming Rubio in a deluge of television ads, he has never made an argument for himself as president and this debate reinforced that unfortunate conclusion.

As for Ben Carson, as usual, he seemed lost on stage. His poll numbers have been falling steadily, and his poor performance may only accelerate that process.

Looking at the field, it is still possible for Christie, Kasich or Bush to overtake Rubio in New Hampshire and end his bid to be the leading moderate conservative in the race. In a three-lane race in which Trump has cornered the outlier, independent vote and Cruz the evangelical and Tea Party conservatives, there is still room for a third candidate embraced by portions of the party establishment to make a run at the nomination. But nothing that happened on the stage in Charleston, South Carolina would lead anyone to believe that the third member of the first tier is someone other than Rubio.

But even conceding Rubio that third spot, Trump’s surprisingly nuanced performance illustrated why he must be taken seriously as a possible nominee. It’s true that his stances on issues like security and immigration were mere sloganeering and what he said about China and trade — an issue that theoretically a veteran of international business should command — made no sense whatsoever. But Trump’s ability to channel voter anger at the political establishment combined with his smart smack down of Cruz on New York illustrated why he’s way ahead right now.

The previous debates have often seemed to confuse the issue of who will be the finalists as the huge field provided more confusion than clarity. But that wasn’t the case in Charleston as the three men at the top shined the brightest. How that trio will be sorted out will ultimately be decided by the voters in the primaries and not the polls or pundits handicapping the debates. But with less than three weeks to go before the first votes are cast, the shape of the 2016 race appears to finally have been defined.

Tonight's debate

One hour after the end of tonight's debate, the Drudge Poll has Trump (56%) winning over Cruz (30%) and Rubio (7%) with all the others getting 1% each. I agree it was by far the strongest debate Trump has had so far. Like Christie, I am getting tired of the Rubio/Cruz war.

GOP's five ring circus

h/t Nate Silver

Where does the GOP race stand?

Going into tonight's debates, Ted Cruz is holding on to a slim lead over Donald Trump in Iowa, where it looks like a two-man race. However, Trump is way ahead of everybody in New Hampshire. After New Hampshire, we go down south, where Cruz regains his strength, and Trump stays strong.
Read the latest polling results here.

So much for executive experience

David Drucker writes in the Washington Examiner,

So much for executive experience.

The first three Republicans to exit the presidential race were governors. Among them, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a conservative hero for taking on the public employee unions and originally predicted to be a finalist for the 2016 nomination; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a one-time rising GOP star who led his state's recovery from Hurricane Katrina; and Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who presided over the best economy in America amid the Great Recession.

Pacing the field are a celebrity businessman, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, and two 44-year-old first-term senators whose resumes are about equal to that of President Obama when the then-first term senator launched his 2008 White House bid at the age of 45. That runs counter to what Republican voters thought they would want after eight years of a president they deride as an amateur whose lack of having ever run anything is painfully evident.

According to Pew Research polling, Republicans favored experience and track record over "new ideas" and "new approach" in March by a margin of 57 percent to 36 percent. By late September, just after Walker become the second Republican to drop out, those numbers were reversed, with 65 percent preferring a change candidate, and only 29 percent wanting know-how. It's an unusual dynamic for the GOP.

Since World War II, the five Republicans elected president had previous executive experience. They were drawn from the ranks of governors (George W. Bush of Texas and Ronald Reagan of California) and vice presidents (George H.W. Bush, who served under Reagan, and Richard Nixon, who reported to Dwight D. Eisenhower.) Eisenhower, though not previously elected to public office, was a five-star U.S. Army general and the supreme Allied Commander during WWII.

... maybe the problem is that some of them have placed too much value on their resume, and not focused enough on a "compelling" agenda. Republican pollster David Winston said many candidates make the mistake of leading with their resume as validation that they are qualified to serve, rather than emphasizing ideas to make voters' lives better, and then pointing to their professional experience as proof that they have the skills to implement them.

"Candidates who have records need to understand that a record is something that can show that they have the ability to implement ideas," Winston said. "But if they don't have compelling ideas, what is the point of discussing your record?"

Read more here.

The Republican primary electorate seems distinctly uninterested in those who have experience in Washington

Jim Geraghty asks at National Review,

Why the Continuing Love Affair with Neophyte Candidates?

Bill Clinton ran in 1992 on a pledge to cut taxes on the middle class, then broke that promise once elected. In 2000, George W. Bush ran on a “humble” foreign policy. Barack Obama debuted on the national stage pledging to overcome the partisan divide, proclaiming, “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.” (By 2012, Obama was running ads declaring Mitt Romney “isn’t one of us.”)

In other words, the candidate you see on the campaign trail is not necessarily the kind of president you get in office.

The Republican primary electorate seems distinctly uninterested in those who have experience in Washington; the perception seems to be that if you’ve been here as more than a tourist, you’re part of the problem. I can think of a wide range of conservatives on Capitol Hill who would bristle at the charge -- Trey Gowdy, Mick Mulvaney, Tim Scott, Jeff Sessions, Pat Toomey, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson. The idea that Ted Cruz is some sort of clubby Washington insider just because he works there doesn’t pass the laugh test. Bobby Jindal spent two terms in the U.S. House but is running on his Louisiana record, and he can’t seem to get a second look.

The philosophy with Donald Trump seems to be, “If you know the attitude, you know what the man will do in office.” Perhaps that’s indeed the case; Trump is not a man who ignores slights or insults, who is driven to exploit every point of leverage in negotiations, and relishes rhetorical and legal combat. Considering how frequently Vladimir Putin gives this administration wedgies, that sounds pretty appealing. Trump seems to know that failing to build a wall as promised would not just get him tossed out after one term; it would do irreparable damage to his reputation as the man who gets things done.

But in his September interview with Hugh Hewitt, Trump indicated he didn’t know the major players in the Middle East and didn’t feel any need to learn them, as they would probably change by the time he took the oath of office, and that he would catch up with his intelligence briefings after he’s elected. “First day in office, or before then, right at the day after the election, I’ll know more about it than you will ever know.” (That lack of interest is not reassuring, unless you hold the minority view that additional knowledge leads to worse decision-making.)

Do we know what we’re getting if the candidate hasn’t yet sorted out what he thinks?

Trump said he doesn’t care whether Ukraine enters NATO. Maybe it doesn’t matter to him, or to a majority of GOP primary voters. But under Article Five of the NATO treaty, we’re obligated to come to the aid of any attacked NATO ally, and Russian-affiliated forces are fighting in Ukraine right now. So the consequences of Ukraine and whether it someday joins NATO are indeed really big for America, whether or not Trump or GOP primary voters care to pay attention.

The philosophy with Dr. Ben Carson seems to be, “If you know the biography, you know what the man will do in office.” Carson has the most impressive life story of any of the candidates, and maybe a life well-lived is indeed the best preparation for the Oval Office. There is still time -- although not too much time -- to figure out the difference between the debt limit and the budget, or which countries are in NATO. But again, because he doesn’t have that long time in office, with lots of votes on a variety of issues, or a long list of decisions reached as governor, we don’t know exactly how Carson would come down on a whole host of issues -- and when we do, we rely on his statements, not a record. This applies to Carly Fiorina as well.

Maybe our personal connection with a candidate indeed matters most. But the GOP’s love affair with neophyte presidential candidates echoes the national gamble of 2007–08, betting the future of the country on a man running on the generic themes of “hope,” “change,” and “yes, we can,” a candidate who described himself as a “blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” That bout of national hysteria is precisely how our system is NOT supposed to work. There isn’t supposed to be much mystery to our presidents. We’re supposed to know who and what we’re getting.

From the Cuban Missile Crisis to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first job of the president was to prevent Armageddon. If you look at the men who won their parties’ nominations during that period -- Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan -- you don’t see a lot of young, untested political neophytes. (Carter and Michael Dukakis probably come closest.) You see a lot of political and military veterans, older men who had seen war and knew its consequences. Men who had long voting records, and whose views on just about every major issue under the sun were known and recorded. You didn’t gamble on a presidential selection during the Cold War. America needed a leader who the people could trust to keep a cool head in a crisis, who could deal with reports of troop movements near the Fulda Gap without panicking, overreacting, or inviting something worse by under-reacting.

The yearning for a celebrity president, a buddy president, an entertaining president was hard to keep down, though. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, and within three years, Bill Clinton was playing the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show.

Overnight roundup of analyses of last night's debate

The Daily 202 from Power Post does a round up of overnight comments on the web, and came up with ten takeaways regarding last night's debate.

1. No one attacked Ben Carson, who comes out as the frontrunner. Carson spoke for only 9 minutes and 22 seconds, less than every other candidate during the two-hour debate. He did not attack anyone, and no one attacked him.

The other candidates on stage calculated that going after the soft-spoken neurosurgeon could backfire, especially if it looked they were doing the bidding of the mainstream media. Ted Cruz, who has the most to gain with Carson’s fall, is trying to make a show of abiding by Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment to not speak ill of other Republicans … at least for the time being. And the rest of the social conservatives who see themselves in Carson’s lane were relegated to the undercard debate: Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.

Determined not to face the kind of criticism that CNBC got after the last debate, Fox Business moderator Neil Cavuto gently asked Carson not about the spate of stories that raise questions about his truthfulness. Instead, he asked him whether he thinks that coverage has hurt his campaign and to talk about his belief that there is a “double standard in the media … that seems obsessed with inconsistencies and potential exaggerations in your life story, but then looked the other way when it came to then Senator Barack Obama’s.” Cavuto never specified Carson’s alleged embellishments or asked him to engage with them substantively.

“I have no problem with being vetted,” Carson said. “What I do have a problem with is being lied about.”

Weekly Standard executive editor Bill Kristol called it a “weirdly effective tactic”: “He doesn’t criticize anyone, so no one else gets to comment on him, and what he says seems unproblematic.”

Fox News digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt put Carson at the top of his winners list: “He came to the stage with the press and his rivals hot on his heels over alleged fabrications in his biography. His succinct response to that (with an elbow thrown Hillary Clinton’s way over her Benghazi claims) was effective. But it was his new frontrunner status and cloak of favorability that did the trick.”

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight notes that Carson received more Google search traffic than any other candidate during the debate, “a factor which has sometimes been a better leading indicator of polling movement than pundits’ takes on who did well, and his performance was composed after a couple of weeks of intense media scrutiny.”

2. Jeb Bush “applied the tourniquet” and stopped the bleeding. It’s unclear if he’s bottomed out.

Al Cardenas, a longtime Bush friend, provided a blunt assessment to my colleague Ed O’Keefe: “Two things happened: He applied the tourniquet and applied it successfully. And number two, he gave the reassurance to the donors, the activists and all the folks involved in the campaign, reassured them that they made the right choice to begin with and re-energized them. This was, in my opinion, the biggest night of the campaign so far.”

“If this was his biggest night, Bush still needs far bigger ones — and soon,” O’Keefe writes in his analysis. “He’s mired in the single digits in national surveys and in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he will travel again this week. Donors have warned of potential fundraising struggles despite recent decisions to trim his campaign budget.”

“This is the confident Jeb Bush supporters have been waiting for, but how many good answers will it take to break the storm clouds?” wondered CNN’s Jeff Zeleny.

...3. Marco Rubio got lobbed softballs so soft that he could not help but LAUGH at one of them. Literally! It helped that Jeb chickened out of picking a fight with him after blowing it so badly in Boulder. The critical reviews of the Florida senator’s performance are positive across the board, with some dissenters saying he sounded too canned.

The Fix’s Chris Cillizza: “Rubio knocked it out of the park when debating military spending and the right role for America in the world with Rand Paul. He got a meatball of a question when asked by the moderators about Hillary Clinton’s résumé as compared with his own; he, unsurprisingly, answered it well and easily. Time and time again, he oozed knowledge while appearing entirely relaxed.”

Conservative Post columnist Jennifer Rubin: “Rubio once again had the strongest performance. He shot down Paul’s suggestion that spending on the military makes one ‘liberal’ and repeatedly spoke up in favor of strong U.S. leadership. … Asked about running against an experienced Clinton, he went into his effective riff about representing the future while she represents the past.”

The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin and Patrick Healy: “Rubio was not only able to avoid being drawn into the contentious immigration debate, but also repeatedly received questions that allowed him to answer with versions of his stump speech. Even he seemed unable to believe his good fortune when he was asked to make his case against Clinton. He chuckled for a moment before unspooling a well-rehearsed argument: why he can prosecute a ‘generational’ case against her.”

...4. Ted Cruz, who along with Rubio won the last debate, had another great night. He also foreshadowed the very bitter battle to come.

On crony capitalism, Cruz laid the predicate to go after Rubio more explicitly when the field winnows. The Texas senator decried sugar subsidies, but he did not mention that his opponent backs them. The Floridian’s unabashed support for special government handouts that directly boost the bottom line of his own donors at the expense of the free market could become a problematic data point when Cruz eventually sets out to make the case that his Senate rival is a moderate, as he called him last week, or, more credibly, a conservative of convenience.

Thought leaders noticed. For movement conservatives who see the sugar subsidy as the symbol of a backward agriculture policy, including the top editor at National Review, Cruz’s attack was not subtle.

...Lowry wrote a column declaring Cruz the clear winner afterward: “Rubio was very good, as well. But I thought Rubio was slightly better than Cruz last time, and that Cruz was slightly better this time. Rubio just felt a little off.”

Kristol said on his magazine’s podcast, “I though Ted Cruz was very strong. He consistently gave substantive answers that were well delivered. … I don’t think Bush saved his campaign.”

“Cruz is showing why so many insiders think he’ll eventually be in the final two or three when the field winnows,” wrote NBC’s Chuck Todd.

It increasingly seems like this could come down to Rubio vs. Cruz. Glenn Beck wrote on Facebook that Rubio and Cruz were the two winners, but he was “leaning a bit” toward Rubio.

Mark Halperin gave all the candidates B’s on his post-debate report card, but Rubio and Cruz got B-plusses. The Bloomberg anchor says Cruz “continued his practice of addressing the TV camera, not the moderators or other candidates, to strong effect. A style and issue emphasis with the potential to broaden his appeal.”

...5. No one is afraid of Donald Trump any more. The billionaire took far more punches than anyone else. There is not a single candidate, except maybe Cruz, afraid of drawing his ire.

Rupert Murdoch, who owns the entities that sponsored the debate, noted that The Donald seemed to recede from view:

...6. John Kasich was the biggest loser.

He got more speaking time than any other candidate, which managed to work against him.

Base voters did not like his attempts to cut in, but they liked his message even less. Frank Luntz said that Kasich “scored the lowest ever” in his New Hampshire focus group, and that “his support of bailouts ‘for people who can afford it’ scored an 8″ of 100. As a point of comparison, Rubio got 88 on the dial test when he called for the repeal of Dodd-Frank. Luntz relayed that people in his focus group were yelling at the screen: “They don’t want Kasich to speak. Why Johnny, why?”

...National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg–who called Rubio, Cruz and Carly Fiorina the winners–zeroed in on the Ohio governor: “He’s done. He came across angry, condescending and unprincipled. By the end of the debate he came across as the drunk, obnoxious, uncle everyone wishes hadn’t accepted the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner.”

...7. Chris Christie won the undercard debate.

Outgoing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal came loaded for bear, ready to unspool harsh attacks on Huckabee’s and Christie’s records.

The New Jersey governor excelled by showing that he has the self-discipline to largely ignore attacks on himself and furiously focus on Hillary Clinton instead, the Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last writes.

David A. Fahrenthold highlights Christie’s hard appeal to law enforcement officers, saying he would take their side in the national debate over police shootings and brutality. “I will have your back,” he said.

...8. Mike Huckabee, the other candidate knocked off the main stage to the undercard, was basically a non-factor. His most memorable moment was a joke that sounded like it belonged in another era. When asked about Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, Huckabee responded: “Well, my wife’s name’s Janet. When you say Janet yellin’, I’m very familiar with what you mean.” And Republicans wonder why they lose women by double digits…

...9. Rand Paul grabbed for the isolationist mantle, which will probably give him a needed boost with the Ron Paul supporters who have been defecting to Cruz.

According to Facebook, the top social moment of the debate was the Paul exchange with Rubio over defense spending. Twitter said it was the second most talked-about moment. Most Republicans actually agree with the Florida senator’s position, but it nonetheless reminded past supporters of the Kentucky senator why they liked him. Paul has slipped into the single digits, and he’s gotten less and less buzz.

In the past, Paul would vigorously push back on any idea that he’s an isolationist, nervous that it would limit his ability to win over non-libertarian factions of the party. He did not try to do that last night because, right now, he needs his natural base to come home.

“Paul had his best debate tonight,” tweeted The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis: “Settled on a clear libertarian message — instead of trying to be all things to all people.” Former RNC chair Michael Steele agreed.

Chuck Todd thought Paul’s moment on foreign policy made for his best 15 minutes of all four debates. “He was being who he is without coming across angry or annoyed,” tweeted the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Paul easily had his best debate night of campaign.”

...10. The moderators did not become the story, which made the RNC very happy, but they also let the candidates off easy at several key junctures.

Read more here.

Dick Morris continues not being a fan of Ben Carson

Here is what Dick Morris had to say today about last night's debate:

Trump, Cruz, and Rubio strengthened themselves in the fourth GOP debate which was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last night.

Trump regained his former form — irreverent, blunt, feisty, fearless, and strong. He dished out red meat all night. His best moments were in his dissection of the excuses for granting amnesty and his explanation of the feasibility of deportation. He cited Eisenhower’s record but he might as well have cited Obama’s. In 2011, before he switched policies, the Obama Administration sent over 400,000 illegal immigrants home. It is not hard to see how this could be increased to several million a year with more manpower and resources.

Trump was also excellent in his critique of the Iraq War, including his proposal to keep some of the oil revenues to compensate those wounded in helping the nation secure its freedom.

Ted Cruz’ performance was very good. And not just his clarity, style, and forcefulness. His substance was groundbreaking. By tying unemployment and wage stagnation to illegal immigration, he set up the parameters of a position that can lure back the Reagan Democrats — the white, blue collar voters and co-opt the left’s issue of income inequality. He also spoke about “sound money” and implied a return to the gold standard — a brand new issue in the race. His answers on taxes and budget cuts were specific but not pedantic and his refusal to bail out banks sharply differentiated him from the DC consensus. (The rebuttal — that depositors would lose their money — is absurd. We still have the FDIC and federal government behind it).

Rubio’s evening showed his charisma, poise, and fluency. His answers about the minimum wage and his optimism about America were moving and important.

But Rubio set himself up for a big new negative in his proposal to add a trillion dollar entitlement in his “refundable” tax credit for families with children. A refundable tax credit is simply a welfare check in a nation where half the people pay no taxes to refund. When we combine this issue with Rubio’s deafening silence on amnesty — he sponsored the “gang of eight” bill on immigration — we see two potent negatives that can take him down.

Kasich behaved like a noisy child.

Fiorina was good but her time has passed.

Paul was great at starting arguments which he then lost.

Bush was his underwhelming self.

And Carson was pathetic. He showed he really couldn’t be more specific in discussing the Middle East than to say that “there are a lot of factions” running around. He gave no indication of the strength or knowledge a president must have to serve effectively.

Dick Morris's analysis of last night's debate

Dick Morris believes Trump will stay on top of the polling after last night's debate. He believes Carson hurt himself. Watch his analysis here.

Debate analysis

Here is Jim Geraghty's analysis of last night's debate.

The second debate

The debate just ended. My overall impression is that we have some really good people running for the GOP 2016 nomination. It was a tremendously entertaining evening for me. I am glad every single one of them is running. More of this, please!

Give Jake Tapper some credit, too.

Blunt assessments of the GOP candidates

Arnold Steinberg authors a blunt assessment at PJ Media of the chances each of the 2016 GOP candidates for president. I will excerpt here his most blunt comments about some of the leading candidates, listed alphabetically:

Jeb Bush: Jeb flubs easily anticipated questions, in an endless clarification loop.

Ben Carson: An earnest candidate with a story to tell, he has intense and growing support....He could calmly confront Trump and win the next debate and, then, who knows?

Chris Christie: He’s pugnacious and quick on his feet, especially with the weight loss. Style aside, Christie has no base.

Ted Cruz: He is intelligent and principled. He plays the long game, staying positive toward other candidates. His decision to praise Trump suggests Cruz (a) wants Trump to battle others, and (b) hopes to inherit Trump supporters if Trump falters; but (c) would be open to being Trump’s vice-presidential nominee.

Carly Fiorina: Aggressive but civil, she is the compromise outsider, between name-calling Trump and understated Carson. But her niche is as the anti-Hillary. What if it’s Biden? Regardless, she could be someone’s vice-presidential nominee.

John Kasich: On paper, a Kasich (Ohio)-Rubio (Florida) ticket, if not exciting, looks plausible and could emerge, if not through the primaries, then at a brokered convention.

Rand Paul: Rand started brilliantly as a libertarian Jack Kemp reaching out with novel issues, like criminal justice reform. But he was unable to synthesize a coherent foreign policy. Worse, his father Ron Paul, whether in doomsday radio-television commercials, or blaming French policy in Algeria sixty years ago for this year’s terrorist attack in Paris, or praising Iran while supporting the Iran deal, has effectively sabotaged his son’s campaign. Until Rand Paul drops out to run for Senate reelection, he may continue to do the dirty work of others by attacking Trump as a crony capitalist and possibly help them, not himself.

Marco Rubio: The only way for a candidate to defeat Trump is not to wound him but score a knockout. Is Rubio or anyone else up to a challenge? If I were working for Rubio, I’d make him David to Trump’s Goliath.

Donald Trump: Trump is the most effective and daring campaigner in recent American history. Oddly, some conservatives who fret about Obama’s usurpation of power welcome Trump as a strong executive. Trump now must focus on the Iran deal and serious issues and appear less impulsive, otherwise he will peak with over-exposure and as voters worry about his temperament as the nation’s commander-in-chief.

Scott Walker: His tired “won-three-elections in four years in a blue state” mantra is for PACS, not voters. He seems weak. He talks quickly in redundant sound bites (“big bold agenda”) and is visibly implausible on foreign policy.

Read more here.

Post debate poll results

Mike Flynn reports at Breitbart that an NBC poll taken Friday and Saturday

finds Donald Trump holding his lead with 23 percent support among Republican primary voters. This is consistent with a Gravis Marketing poll taken after the debate, where 19 percent of Republicans said Trump won the debate.

The Gravis poll found that more Republicans, 22 percent, felt Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon and political rookie, won the debate. In the NBC poll, Carson surged into third place in the nomination contest, earning 11 percent support.

...The exact breakdown and percentage of the first seven spots in the NBC poll are: Trump (23), Cruz (13), Carson (11), Fiorina (8), Rubio (8), Bush (7) and Walker (7).

Read more here.

Another perspective on the debates

Clark Judge analyzes Thursday's debates at Hugh Hewitt.com. Some excerpts:

Trump: He went into the debate as the voice of everyman — ready to sweep away all that we the people hate about Washington. But on stage he as much as bragged of buying politicians, making them debase themselves for his money. The one politician he called out by name was Hillary Clinton, who, get this, he compelled to attend his wedding. His message of the evening came down to I’m corrupt in a corrupt world… and proud of it. Trump was the evening’s biggest loser.

Jeb Bush: Each of the governors in the race has a remarkable record in office, but Bush more than anyone. Yes, he has the dynasty problem. Is it really good for our political system to have three presidents in two decades from the same nuclear family? But his record of, for example, calling five back-to-back special sessions of his legislature until they passed entitlement reform –that record is incredibly compelling, particularly when matched against the needs of the moment.

Scott Walker. On the surface, Walker was not a big winner or loser either, except, perhaps, for his rejection of a life of the mother exception to abortion. We will see how that plays out. The answer struck me as, at the very least, unreflective.

Ben Carson: Smart. Sweet. Charming. I imagine he left every viewer feeling at ease – not a bad quality for a president in times such as these. He handled policy questions effortlessly. I could see Carson picking up steam after last night.

Mike Huckabee: The most quotable man of the evening, including his sly closing zinger indirectly directed at Trump: “We’ve been talking about a person high in the polls but doesn’t know how to lead, a person who has scandals. I’m talking about Hillary Clinton.”

Ted Cruz: Focused. Compelling. A bit harsh in his manner. A record of standing up against bad thing but not, in contrast to the governors, of getting things done. But if Trump collapses, he should be one of the winners.

Marco Rubio: Also focused and compelling. Unlike Cruz, no harshness. All hope. He struck me as a touch callow.

Rand Paul versus Chris Christie: Their exchange over pursuit of terrorists within our borders was the evening’s great dust up. While Paul had a point, Christie (with nearly a decade of going after terrorists in a state that is reputed to have become a staging area for Islamist bad actors) won the exchange. Paul came out of the evening damaged, Christie enhanced.

John Kasich: A major winner. It helped that he was on home turf. But he presented his story – as House Ways and Means chairman as well as Ohio governor – in a highly compelling and focused manner, making it highly relevant to the nation’s immediate challenges. He was also the only one on the stage to display foreign policy credentials. As others drop, he moves up.

Biggest winner (or winners) of the evening: Carly Fiorina and maybe Rick Perry. Fiorina’s performance in that early evening debate that no one but commentators watched had all the commentators talking. Then, during the big show, Fox played a clip of her and Perry in an exchange that had both of them looking good. It will be no surprise if both of them end up in the big show next time. Certainly Fiorina.

Read more here.