The commentariat's consensus is that Ted Cruz had a bad night. This shocks and displeases me. Cruz is the principal back-up guy in the gaudy hit squad that is stalking the GOP, so naturally I would hate to see him fade; thus my displeasure at any such negative consensus. My shock is the more powerful emotion, though. Said one of Politico's "Insider" Iowa Republicans: "He seemed plastic and insincere" last night. The belatedness of the insider's epiphany is breathtaking; absent Ted Cruz's plasticity and insincerity, the man himself is absent. It is shocking that Cruz's chief characteristics are only now trickling down noticeably to the state, county and precinct levels, but there you go.
This half of the two "Cuban guys" in the race (as Chris Matthews hilariously, and then last night apologetically, framed him) is taking the heaviest heat for his prickly attack on Chris Wallace & Co.: "I would note that the last four questions have been, Rand, please attack Ted. Marco, please attack Ted. Chris, please attack Ted. Jeb, please attack Ted." Cruz was attempting a Trumpian assault on Fox News, believing, it seems, that The Donald had sufficiently landed even Roger Ailes' Obama-bugabooing network in "lamestream media" territory. This did not play well with either insiders or audience, and Cruz's prickly attack only boomeranged on the prick.
I don't mean to add to Ted's woes. We need him, and we need him strong. One never knows, Trump might fizzle. The latter's strategic absence last night was meant to let others target Ted, and of course those others obliged — ripping him on his immigration squishiness. So while Trump may have (to some extent) won the debate by skipping it, Cruz's loss could be an incalculable longer-term loss to the grim forces that are gutting the GOP.
I also note with no little shock that Jeb Bush performed almost as a competent politician would. Indeed, though Jeb's performance contained no "particularly electrifying moments," says, needlessly, the NY Times, it was nearly as noteworthy as Ted's. He managed to speak in whole sentences, some of which were intelligible, and one or two even intelligent.
Rand Paul also performed well, and would have performed even better had the GOP's ghastly views of world affairs been a subject of focus. Ben Carson was, well, Ben Carson. John Kasich, too, made an unremarkable appearance. With Chris Christie we merely got more of Chris Christie, which is to say, virtually every probe resulted in a his bellowing that Hillary Clinton is a felonious, unprecedented peril to the republic which only Chris Christie can stop.
Which leaves Marco Rubio, who would do the republic an enormous favor by doing just that. I simply don't "get" the boy's appeal to even a small sliver of the right-wing masses. His "debate" deliveries are mostly heaved snippets from his stump speech — Christie-like hysterics about the unthinkable menace of Hillary, which, I suppose, are the boy's supposed appeal — with any gaps shoveled in by adolescent sensitivities, religious pandering, blind bellicosity and other overrehearsed predictabilities.
But now, with the debate out of the way, it's back to the Donald Trump show. Which is how it should be.