Senator Paul, I thought, had his debate so far, getting a chance to make his distinctive points. I especially liked his point (from the WaPo transcript) about Ferguson:

One thing I discovered in Ferguson was that a third of the budget for the city of Ferguson was being reaped by civil fines. People were just being fined to death. Now you and I and many of the people in this audience, if we get a $100 fine, we can survive it. If you’re living on the edge of poverty and you get a $100 fine or your car towed, a lot of times you lose your job.


It would have been nice, though, if the criminal-justice question had been put before candidates who don’t already have a well-defined profile on the issue. It would also have been nice if anything about the economy had come up.

(disclosure)