No clear winner (though, again, I thought Rubio was the strongest). For me, the big question is, of the many candidates circling the drain, did any make a decent enough showing to give himself a little more life?
In my opinion, only Christie did. He can stay alive little longer. But a bunch of the flatliners really ought to pack it in now.
Oddly, Politifact didn’t look into that one.
Christie popped up in one of the first episodes of *TDS with Trevor Noah *and came across as very relaxed and personable. If he can avoid any blow-ups - and any scandals - he could well hang in there through the first primaries. I’m not sure he has enough support overall to win but I suppose it depends who else drops out first and whether he picks up any of their supporters.
I am pretty annoyed that Carson denied involvement with Mannatech and managed to endorse their product in the same answer.
Fiorina plans to reduce the tax code from 73,000 pages to 3. Yes, three.
Got a draft to show us?
That’s too brazen a lie not to bite him badly.
So, adaher, did *any *of these jamokes raise your confidence?
Yes, Kasich, Christie, and Rubio all did well.
But that right there was the moderator’s fault; she wasn’t prepared with the cite.
Moreover, while the “personal Senator” line is a slightly weird hyperbole, it is true that Zuckerberg’s lobby has worked with Rubio on the H1B issue–which is a legitimate one in which Trump, or rather his campaign, is not obviously wrong. A serious debate question would have focused on the substance of the issue, not the shot at Rubio.
What? Substance? In a Republican debate?!
Man, get hold of yourself! Enough of this crazy talk!
Yes, it would have been sweet if she had held up a piece of paper and said “Here’s a printout of your website where that very phrase is used. Do you not even read your own website?”
It’s entirely plausible to me that Trump never saw his own website. I just think it’s sad that all a Republican has to do is falsely accuse the media of being unfair to him and the Republican base has a mass orgasm.
Trump actually showed a reasonable command of the issues and his policy proposals this time, even if he’s stuck with having Mexico pay for his wall. I no longer think this is solely an ego trip for him - I think he actually sees himself as the best candidate for the job now.
Well, we’ll have to wait a few days for the polls to confirm it, but that there’s a strong hint they’re doomed. 
Not Rubio. Rubio is actually favored by the prediction markets.
You no longer trust polls (except for the ones that show Clinton free-falling), so you’re instead going to place your trust in betting websites?
I think the moderation was bad.
When questioning Trump about the Zuckerberg thing, she absolutely should have had the cite to hand. However, Trump probably would have just blamed an intern or something.
They weren’t prepared to follow up Carson’s denial of his Mannatech work, either, and looked instead like they were simply attacking him. Maybe they expected weaseling instead of simply lying from him.
I take it you turned on the debate at that moment because prior to that it was a complete clown show from the CNBC crew. The first question right out of the gate had no objective other than to ridicule Trump as a “comic book candidate.” Like Trump or not, that’s bad form. The moderators were constantly walking on candidates’ responses, walking on each other and generally just flubbed up the whole thing.
I came in and out, there was a ball game on, other stuff to do. Here’s Trump’s question:
Up until the question, Trump agreed with every one of the lead-ins. The lead-ins that Trump readily agreed to are patently absurd, which makes the question perfectly valid.
I liked how Kasich started out by attacking Trump’s and Carson’s crazy ideas. I can’t be the only one who saw that and thought that finally, someone called out these two for the crazy ideas the have been promoting. It seemed obvious that Kasich is going for the sane Republican vote. But he is languishing in the low single digits. As a Democrat I don’t really understand why he is doing so poorly. Yes, I disagree with him on some of the issues, but he seemed to be the only one in the room that brought up the fact that the base is being rallied to support crazy ideas. Why isn’t this guy doing better?
If you think a rhetorical question that serves no purpose other than to ridicule the candidate, whomever it may be, is appropriate for a debate, then we’re just not going to agree. Moderators are not supposed to play a game of “gotcha” with the candidates.
She did have the best response to the debate, posting the gif from the recent hearings of her brushing her shoulder off.