You mean this isn’t the real race? I think one of the biggest problems with our election process is that it’s always run like a horse race. Who is gaining, who is coming from behind, who is riding the rails and who is praying for another horse to go lame.
Except among Republicans, this is being run more like a ritualized “face race”. The candidates are all trying to run as stealthily as possible, to avoid vicious, multimillion dollar attacks from both the Democrats and the Republican establishment.
The only thing the “front runner” gets at this point is grief, the opposite of momentum. Bush has it easiest, because at least the Republican establishment supports him. But he is so lame and unloved that minor candidates who should be behind him by double digits are close on his heels.
This is why Trump is such a good thing at this point. He is breaking lots of the “political adviser rules”, which forces the other candidates to at least campaign for the job and not just try to hide from the light like cockroaches.
It also means that this first debate might knock out three or more of the lightweights, a good thing, because the field needs to be culled. And most of the attacks will be against Trump, not the serious conservatives, who will instead get an opportunity to build momentum instead of getting stymied in a brawl.