(done before I’ve read anyone else’s to avoid contamination)

WINNERS:

1. Viewers watching for entertainment. The Democratic debate was nice but boring. This Republican one had all the candidates yelling at each other, trading some really witty insults, and was pretty much never dull.



My favorite moment was when Cruz attacked Rubio for something he said on Spanish television, Rubio shouted back “How do you know? You don’t even speak Spanish!” and then Ted Cruz started yelling at Rubio in Spanish. Now, the Internet tells me that Cruz in fact does not speak Spanish, but I still think this was stupid of Rubio. First of all, it’s a silly objection - obviously somebody translated Rubio’s speech for him. Second of all, “You don’t speak Spanish!” is maybe…not the most crushing insult in a forum full of Republican voters? Third of all, if Cruz has even the slightest Freshman Language Class knowledge of the language, it was a perfect opportunity for him to do what he in fact did and make Rubio look like a fool. Still, fun to watch.



2. Marco Rubio. Given how bad his last debate was, he had nowhere to go but up. And go up he did. He was back to sounding perfectly polished, really well-spoken, inspirational yet pragmatic, and so on. The technicians who maintain his positronic brain deserve a raise. He held his own in a bunch of fights and still managed to seem above the fray and Presidential. Even though he was in an awful spot in terms of immigration - having sponsored a big pro-immigration bill in a primary that seems to be focusing on how anti-immigration everyone is - I thought he acquitted himself well and managed to sound inspirational while doing so.

3. Jeb. I love Jeb so much. Everyone is so mean to him. I want this election to become a redemption arc narrative, where Jeb starts out as the overconfident. bumbling establishment favorite, only to be torn apart by Donald Trump. Everyone thinks he’s out of the game, but he goes through a training montage, sticks to his guns about loving Latinos and wanting to be compassionate to illegal immigrants, learns to stand up to Trump and win back his supporters, and finally wins the Presidency as he becomes his own person outside the shadow of his brother and father, tying up his internal and external character arcs at the same time. The debate tonight fit my narrative and he finally got the better of Trump, as he should.

4. Whoever fixed things so that the crowd hated Trump. It wasn’t very subtle, but it worked.

LOSERS

1. Trump. Jeb Bush fought back against him, and the crowd cheered every blow Bush landed and booed all of Trump’s responses. While the “bully” archetype can be powerful and connote strength, “bully who is failing at his bullying and not actually popular with anybody” is just kind of pathetic and not a good look for anybody. Part of me feels sorry for him, because the main reason he had a bad night was because he was taking liberal positions that I mostly agreed with, and I suspect the crowd was fixed against him. But separate him from his aura of invincibility, and he really does just look petty and pathetic. Even though he probably didn’t deserve it tonight, he built up enough negative karma that he deserves it more generally, and tonight all those chickens came home to roost.



2. Ben Carson. “Ha ha. Folksy smile. You can find the answer to that question on my website, www.bencarson.com. What were we talking about again? Really?”

3. Ted Cruz. He was very combative, but he didn’t clearly win any of his combats, and eventually it just got annoying and he seemed like The Guy Who Is Always Accusing Other People Of Things.



4. My opinion of the Republican party, even though it was already pretty low. Tonight’s debate was fun to watch in much the same way some people find wrestling fun to watch, but you probably wouldn’t want to make a wrestler the leader of the free world. Everyone except Kasich and maybe Rubio came across as really childish and unPresidential. They kept saying really insane things, like that Bush did nothing wrong, that the Iraq War was great, and so on, and the crowd kept booing anybody who disagreed or tried to add nuance. I didn’t get that impression at all from the Democratic debate (now I’m trying to remember if there was any crowd participation at all) and the Republicans seemed much crazier and more hyperpartisan. I can’t say that none of the candidates seemed to have coherent policy plans, because the format of the debate wasn’t amenable to talking about them even if they were there, but I sure didn’t feel encouraged on that front either.

