It was a night when Ted Cruz referred to this A.F. Branco cartoon (though he referred to the Hamas guy as the Ayatollah — but the intend was right).
This was the moment of the night. I don’t know if anything can stop The Donald, but he was humuliated by Fiorina’s response, which surely was planned at some level but made good use of Trump’s preceding harangue of Jeb Bush:
Fiorina was on fire all night. The clear “Winner.”
Scott Walker started strong, but then didn’t get any questions for what seemed like forever. He managed to insert himself into the coverage by jumping in even when not asked a question. I don’t know if he did enough to reverse his slide. Or at least enough to keep his campaign alive.
I thought Trump’s performance was weak, but I’ve been so wrong about his popularity and what drives his support that I hesitate to predict anything. There just didn’t seem to be much there to excite, though his completely gratuitous slams on Rand Paul were pretty funny.
Jeb Bush melted into the woodwork for the most part, as did most of the candidates (Carson, Kasich, Rand, Huck). I can’t imagine this helped any of them. (Rethinking Cruz) Cruz was forceful, but didn’t seem to be a big part of the debate.
I thought Marco Rubio did well, and Chris Christie at least established a presence.
In reverse chronological order:
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