Grading the GOP Candidates, Round V: Cruz soars, Christie roars, Bush bores and Carson snores

A tag-team match between proponents of an America-first foreign policy against hawkish advocates of regime change and nation building dominated the conversation in the Tuesday night GOP debate in Las Vegas.

The evening produced less Trump-bashing than previous debate-night affairs. Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas dominated much of the contest, battling as if the race were already a two-way contest.

CNN produced a night more focused on policy than the previous slugfest the network hosted.

Cruz deployed debate skills honed through a career in law to command the stage and lay out justifications for his candidacy, not only for the primary but for a general election matchup with Hillary Clinton.

Cruz linked ordinary Americans’ frustrations with political correctness to intelligence failures under President Obama and former Secretary of State Clinton’s stewardship. “Political correctness is killing people,” Cruz thundered, going on to cite the Obama administration’s reluctance to monitor social media accounts or pursue possible radical ties because of its hypersensitivity to profiling.

That narrative is tailor-made to wield in a fight for Ohio, Iowa, and Wisconsin voters against Clinton, who has been pushed to the Left by her Democratic challenger Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and has embraced the forces of radical political correctness.

Speaking in broad strokes on his vision for an American-first foreign policy and filibustering his way through questions that put him in danger, Cruz seemed like a candidate ready for his moment.

“I introduced legislation that I believe is more narrowly targeted at the actual threat,” Cruz said, highlighting three pieces of legislation he filed to back up Republican governors opposed to forced settlement of Syrian refugees in their states.

Cruz has emerged as a national party leader on the issue, putting sensible legislative proposals forward as the media and Establishment hammer Trump for his rhetoric on banning all Muslim immigrants.

“We will build a wall that works, and I’ll get Donald Trump to pay for it,” Cruz said, in a lighthearted jab that nevertheless seemed to mark the official start of his march on Trump’s supporters.

In a back-and-forth with Rubio, Cruz hammered his fellow senator for “Alinsky-like attacks, like Barack Obama,” referring to Rubio’s super PAC ads attacking Cruz for voting to end the National Security Agency’s mass bulk data collection.

Cruz went on to draw a tangible distinction from the foreign policy supported by both Rubio and Clinton, which prioritizes regime change and nation building over killing terrorists and putting the interests of Americans first.

After Christie’s performance in the Tuesday prime-time debate, it is hard to remember that only weeks ago the New Jersey governor was forced to swallow his pride and take the stage alongside the likes of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former New York Gov. George Pataki in the undercard debate.

Christie finally began to lay out a narrative case for his candidacy as a D.C. outsider armed with executive experience.

“This is what it’s like to be on the floor of the United States Senate,” Christie chided Cruz, Rubio, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul after a tense exchange among the three over NSA surveillance. “This is the difference between doing something … and being one of 100 debating it,” he said.

Lumping all three senators together, and working to define them all as products of Washington, is a smart strategy for Christie, who needs most of all to sink Rubio to earn a shot at winning the GOP’s New Hampshire primary.

“Yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the Oval Office is right now,” Christie thundered in one of the strongest hawkish lines of the night.

Look for Christie to continue to attempt to outgun Rubio on rebuilding the military and intervention abroad to win over the Establishment-linked neoconservatives.

No doubt feeling the heat of having barely made the prime-time debate stage at all, Paul mustered everything he had for one of his strongest nights of the contest to date.

Amid strong, though misleading, rhetoric from Rubio on NSA surveillance rollbacks endangering Americans, Paul put Rubio on the defensive by shifting the discussion to immigration and savaging Rubio’s weakness on the border.

“I’m great and strong on national defense, but he’s the weakest of all the candidates on immigration,” Paul said, bringing the fight to the Florida senator.

“Marco has more of an allegiance to Chuck Schumer and to the liberals than he does to conservative policy,” Paul declared in a stinging moment for Rubio, who suffered five comparisons to incoming Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer from Paul and Cruz throughout the night.

Paul also whacked front-runner Donald Trump more skillfully than in past debates, suggesting support for Trump’s notion of targeting terrorist families would mean totally giving up on Americans’ belief in the Constitution.

Paul’s performance was excellent, though his campaign has been on life support, and his path to the nomination seems long lost.

With the skill of a veteran politician, Rubio repeatedly steered the debate conversation back to the issue of NSA bulk surveillance, an issue the Rubio campaign has targeted as a weak-point for Cruz.

But Cruz was well-prepared to deflect Rubio’s criticism on the issue, and Paul took Rubio on directly for suggesting the program meaningfully increased the security of Americans while saying Rubio was weak on the security of American borders.

Rubio also continued his effort to obscure his weakness on amnesty by suggesting Cruz supported past measures offered as amendments during the Gang of Eight fight to increase legal immigrant visas. Rubio earned big applause lines for tough, hawkish talk on ISIS, and, along with Cruz, looked like a contender with the political skill to remain in the top-tier of contention.

Trump had fewer back-and-forth brawls with other contenders than in past debates, but nevertheless took inevitable heat from candidates looking to bring down the front-runner. Trump came off the winner of most of the exchanges, easily swatting away canned lines from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on his judgment and even complimenting other candidates on the stage.

“We’re not talking about isolation, we’re talking about security,” Trump said to his opening question from moderator Wolf Blitzer on his Muslim immigrant ban suggestion, defining his comments in the vein of an Americans-first security policy.

“They shouldn’t be using the word mastermind,” Trump later said, slamming the media for its coverage of terrorists. “These are thugs, these are terrible people.”

Kasich early on took the initiative in slamming President Obama and left-leaning European leaders for gleefully flocking to France for a climate summit but refusing to tackle head-on the growing threat of terrorism.

But after a strong open, the Ohio governor largely faded in a contest dominated by Cruz, Rubio, Paul, and Christie. Kasich dug his own 2016 grave in previous debate performances panning conservative positions on illegal immigration, and he did not do enough Tuesday night to be uniquely remembered, let alone break-out.

Carson came into the debate Tuesday desperately needing to stop the bleeding of his campaign. He largely failed.

Though there were moments when Carson appeared to speak with knowledge on matters of foreign policy, the subject matter of the debate was ill-suited to a Carson comeback. The pediatric neurosurgeon gave a very disjointed answer at one point, comparing the mercy of operating on a child to bombing innocent civilians. It came off as nearly pure rambling.

“We need to think about the needs of the American people” before solving problems in the Middle East, Carson said, joining in with the America-first candidates but not coming off as their champion.

After several presidential-class performances in the early debates, a series of lackluster performances have likely relegated Fiorina to irreversible drop-out watch.

Fiorina’s strongest lines of the night came when tying her experience as a technology CEO to a call for private industry to get involved in stopping terrorism. Fiorina said security agencies missed the Boston bombers and San Bernardino shooter because the "government is woefully behind the technology curve.”

The performance did not contain any glaring errors, but it failed to remind voters of any narrative justification for her candidacy.

This was Bush’s moment to assert his viability in a race increasingly focused on terrorism and foreign policy. For weeks, the Bush campaign raised expectations for Jeb coming out of the last CNN contest.

Bush was completely outshone in hawkish Establishment posturing by fellow Floridian Rubio, and he was largely a non-factor in heated cross-stage exchanges on NSA surveillance and the merits of regime change.

“We need to get the lawyers off the back of the war fighters,” Bush said early on, previewing a night full of canned hawkish lines that paled compared to the war drums of Rubio.

To raise expectations high - only to inevitably disappoint - seems to be the operating strategy of the Bush campaign, and it may be time to recognize that it is not going to work.

Didn’t watch this last debate, and honestly don’t really see a reason to.... Interesting to see Christie getting some love... He’s, in my opinion, the only one besides Trump that actually has any real presence and personality. Don’t agree with him on a lot of policy, but he’s a North Eastern Republican and I am a southern conservative, so I know I won’t see eye to eye socially with most folks in that category. I think Christie is too damaged to actually leverage his presence to anything big at this point, but he and Trump are truly the only 2 people in the running that have anything close to the “it” factor.

I would say that Rubio’s performance/presence on stage was strong “A” which is how the FOX rated him. However, his insistence that the NSA vote by Cruz is an issue for him is in reality a big loser brings him down to B or B-. Then Cruz and Paul landed strong punches on immigration making the night for Cruz a “C”.

Christie says he would shoot down a Russian plane in a no fly zone in Syria- scary. As Paul who is not going to get the nomination said that would risk war with Russia. Russia has already spoken of nukes with ISIS. How does the US make a no fly zone in a country where that country has asked Russia to be there? Christie has some good qualities but not Presidential.

I have to admit that Rubio “looks” great on stage as well as Carson. They seem to be the only ones who can buy suits that fit.

Trumps suit is ok.

The rest look like they got their suits from the salvation army.

It’s honestly distracting.

I know it shouldn’t matter, but it bothers me when they want to be the leader of the free world but look like they are wearing their dad’s old suit.

I thought the best line of the night went to Cruz when, during an answer about his immigration policy, he said he was going to build a wall...and then paused for effect and said "And I'm going to have Donald Trump pay for it".

Great line. I didn't see whether Trump laughed at it or what his response was, but the audience thought it was hilarious from their applause.

I didn’t say I agreed with Christie, I said, as I have said before, he is the only player besides Trump with any sort of presence and personality in the Republican field. I offered no opinion or enforcement of his views or stands.

I have believed for a while Christie could well become the dark horse in this race, the establishment keeps picking folks who just aren’t resonating, because by no small part they have absolutely no presence. In other times this might not be an issue as Hillary has no personality or presence either. But with a commanding presence and personality like Trump in the race, you aren’t going to take him down with people who have all the personality and presence of a sack of rice.

Like it or not, that is the Republican field today, Trump has the “it” factor, like him or not there is no denying it... No one else in the field with the exception of Christie has any presence or personality. We will see how this plays out, but I don’t see any establishment candidate who lacks the “it” factor themselves being able to remotely be able to take on Trump for the nomination.

Will Christie wind up being any sort of factor and a possible dark horse? I don’t know, but if an establishment candidate is going to take out Trump it isn’t going to be Rubio, Cruz or Jeb I can tell you that. If it is going to happen it has to be from someone who also has that presence and personality themselves and the only other guy in the race with it is Christie.

Trump all but wrapped up the nomination last night. He is totally driving arguments and agenda for the GOP in 2016. Everybody else is just trying to “me too”.

Cruz is definitely number two and I am relieved that they finally, finally got him to say he will not support a path to legalization. I thought they would never drag it out of him. If Cruz is for self deportation he should just say it. Its not the worst idea in the world. I think he’s afraid of being called Mitt.

So there you have it folks a two man race. I don’t see Cruz catching Trump at this point but he definitely need a spot in the next administration. He’s wasting his time in the Senate.

Presidential Candidates Comparison (Bush vs. Carson vs. Cruz vs. Rubio vs. Trump)

Please click on the pictures at the top of the columns for more details on the ratings of the candidates.


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It blows my mind to see that no one has mentioned the biggest "GOTCHA!" failure of the night. The brainless communist 'moderators' desperately tried to bait the GOP candidates. Repeatedly. None of the cndidate took the bait. The meme is so childish as to be embarrassing.

UTTER FAIL!

The sad sacks of **** really tried and their desperation made me laugh.

Guess these geniuses never heard of :

Nanking.

The Spanish Civil War

London.

Rotterdam.

Wessel

Tokyo

Osaka

Nagoya

Hiroshima

Nagasaki.

Were it not for ignoring the cowards and ignorant among free people, today we might be saying Gutten Morgen, or Ohayou gozaimasu...

IDIOTS...

Just watched the debate - Everyone up there scared me besides Trump, Cruz, and Paul.

The others are what I would call Main stream Neo con/ Rinos seem to want to start a new cold war - why? The reality is that the Russians are the ones taking out ISIS for us.

I bet Trump could make good deals with Putin. I want to see Trump, Cruz, and Paul working together.

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