In alphabetical order:
- Ted Cruz: won this debate. He was given plenty of opportunities to gut Donald Trump, often after a set-up by Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz took all of them. He didn’t go after Marco Rubio at all, and Marco Rubio returned the favor. I particularly enjoyed watching Ted Cruz keep treating Trump like a petulant child who needed to use his words. Substantively, good foreign policy answers. Him or Rubio would be fine. Him and Rubio would be fine, too.
- John Kasich: talks too much. None of it is bad, but he’s not participating in the same debate as the rest of us.
- Marco Rubio: didn’t win the debate, but this is gonna help win Florida. He kept getting into Trump’s head, knocking him off-balance, so that Ted Cruz could smack him again and again. It was a glorious tag-team and in between Rubio showed a lot of domestic and foreign policy chops.
- Donald Trump: He got the most time tonight. He wishes that he didn’t. Also, Donald Trump is predictable. Last debate, he thought that reports that Marco Rubio wouldn’t attack him were true, and Marco Rubio proceeded to knock Trump down from ten states to seven. This debate? Trump thought that reports that Fox would go easy on him were true, and guess what happened? Full-length slides prepared ahead of time are what happened. Also, and I cannot believe that I need to say this: the Presidential debate stage is not a fit place to discuss the size of one’s genitalia, Donald Trump. Also: we don’t believe in fascism in this country. Also… there’s a lot of “also’s” with this guy.