Second Republican Debate

After the pitifully poor debates in 2012, the Republican debates this time have been refreshingly lively and constructive. And unbelievably, I think the CNN debate tonight was moderated better than the Fox News debate last month. The questions were rattled off quickly and the candidates were able to banter back and forth on the issues.

The down side was the moderators kept trying to engineer attacks between the candidates, usually involving Trump, but mostly the candidates didn't take the bait. There were some lively arguments between Trump and Carly Fiorina, Trump and Bush, Trump and Paul, and some spats between others, but when the debate stalled on Trump and Fiorina's wealth and business success, Chris Christie brought it back in order by saying the debate needed to concentrate on what they were going to do for the middle class and the economy.

Bush had a lot more energy and made a joke about himself and the energizer rabbit which was well received, and Marco Rubio was on fire about foreign policy. Fiorina and Scott Walker also tried to keep the debate on track by attacking Hillary and Obama, but the high point of the evening may have been when Fiorina made an impassioned to defund Planned Parenthood. It received a largest applause of the evening. Huckabee also spoke against Planned Parenthood. Ted Cruz was once again solid, although I don't think his performance was as good as in the first debate. Kasich had the best argument for himself and the economy since he engineered the balanced budget during the Clinton administration. In the end all of them showed themselves to be worthy debaters with strong positions, and most of them probably helped themselves to some degree.

The winner was most likely Carly Fiorina who showed herself to be tough and focused. Her downside may have been that she was too stern, and when she stood up to Trump on his comment about her looks and he gave what would be the closest thing to a Trump apology that anyone could hope for, she refused to look at him or be magnanimous in the least. She looked angry most of the night. She probably also won the sympathy vote when the discussion came to drugs and she told of her son who had died of a drug overdose. Two others who really shined were Christie and Rubio.

The losers ironically I think were the two that are on top of the polls. Trump's self-confidence will probably still take him a long way but his brash, condescension towards other candidates is starting to wear thin. He keeps talking about putting together a plan, but we've yet to hear very much of it, and people are going to grow tired of that eventually. The same is true for Ben Carson in the opposite direction. Yes he's intelligent, and yes he's humble, and yes he's got the right position on about all the issues, but his soft spoken manner is also getting tiring, and I think people are going to want him to speak up and get a little more animated or he isn't going to go far. Rand Paul did better than the last debate but I don't think he made many points.

Scott Walker, although he had good presence and solid answers, and won a dust up with Trump when he said we don't need another apprentice in the White House, was given the least amount of time to talk which couldn't have helped him, although that wouldn't be his fault. It makes you wonder if he's the one the left fears the most.