Despite the best efforts to "Le Pen" Trump out of the debate, he still managed to garner the highest votes among poll audiences with regard who 'won' the debate, focusing on killing ISIS family members, border walls, shutting down the internet, and fixing America's roads and bridges. Ben Carson's moment of silence was his first truthful statement in months. The comes the Cruz-Rubio-Paul-Kasich death-match of who can explain Sunni-Shia turmoil in the most confusing way (with 'coughing' Cruz calling himself the most determined "thug" and Rubio lashing out at Cruz's plans to carpet-bomb Syria). Jeb took a swing at Trump as the "chaos president" and missed. In sum, aside from an Iowa conservative radio host who endorsed Cruz proclaiming Fiorina went "full vagina," the GOP debate appeared more a dick-measuring competition as contestant after contestant lined up to seem more hawkish.

And the winner is...

To better understand the evening's tensions...

Trump loves Carson Trump hates Bush Bush hates Trump Cruz hates Rubio Rubio hates Cruz Fiorina, Paul and Kasich on their own. #GOPDebate — Max Legroom. (@Afromighty) December 16, 2015

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So we start with Ben Carson's moment of slience for San Bernardino...

Quickly followed by Fiorina's opening statement, as the ex-Hewlett Packard CEO detailed overcoming adversity in her life during the remarks - "I have been tested. I have beaten breast cancer, I have buried a child," Fiorina said. "I started as a secretary, and I fought my way to the top of corporate America while being called every b-word in the book," which was described by a conservative Iowan radio host and Cruz endorser...

Wow...Fiorina goes full vagina right away — Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) December 16, 2015

Christie made the statement of the night...

Rand Paul took a swing at Trump's "close that internet thing"...

And then Paul moved on to Rubio's mass surveillance state plans...

Cruz vs Rubio got quite heated at times as they sparred over who was the bigger thug, warmonger, slayer of nations...

"You can't carpet bomb ISIS if you don't have planes and bombs to attack them with." —Rubio, carpet-bombing Cruz on defense cuts — Josh Greenman (@joshgreenman) December 16, 2015

Cruz: "No more determined thug than I will be" -- what? — Katharine Weber (@katharine_weber) December 16, 2015

A quick moment of slience for Lindsey Graham's campaign as he apologized to America for Donald Trump...

After talking about the importance of destroying the Islamic State, Jeb Bush turned his fire on Mr. Trump: “Donald is great at the one-liners, but he’d be a chaos candidate and he’d be a chaos president.”



Mr. Trump accused Mr. Bush of attacking only because his campaign has been “a total disaster” and “nobody cares.”

Trump: I will do everything in my power to beat @HillaryClinton. pic.twitter.com/oTghbK5LnB — POLITICO Video (@POLITICOvideo) December 16, 2015

John Harwood actually reflected something intelligent...

Paul: "the greatest threat to our national security is our debt" — John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) December 16, 2015

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Finally a quick summary of the news...

Summing it all up nicely...