The Winnowing

It's assumed by the GOP establishment that once the field narrows Trump will bump up against his natural ceiling. I think the opposite is true. Trump has essentially sat out these stupid ten-man TV debates and then resumed his rise once they're over. If it came down to a four- or three- or two-man race, the man I saw on Thursday night would be a formidable debate opponent. And I don't doubt he could hold his own against Hillary.

We got a preview of that last night. Having endured "these stupid ten-man TV debates" for six months, Trump found himself in a seven-man show and for the first time played for the full two hours - and dominated. There are two plausible views of last night's South Carolina ding-dong - either that Trump won, or that it was a Trump/Cruz tie. I incline to the former, but I accept that last night many of the post-game commentariat plumped for the latter.

Not Jeb. You could find commentators willing to argue that he had his least worst night by his own abysmal standards, but at this stage that isn't going to be enough.

Man, everybody is pickin' on my man Yeb. "Least worst" is highly biased, you might more kindly say that Yeb had his "best" night...uh..."by his abysmal standards." It's something.

It's down to Trump and Cruz - dare I say it? Because absolutely nobody on FR, nay, nobody in the known universe has said so in so many words - down to Cruz and Trump. OK, maybe a couple of people have said so. All right, everyone. But I said it in the least worst way. (Walking off moping...)

Trump has been very seriously underestimated, and this continues. Hopefully it will until Election Day.

50 years of negotiating deals, in which you have to be on your toes every second, has honed his debating skills. No, not in the same way that Cruz’ have been by being on debating teams and arguing dozens or hundreds of cases in court - but nonetheless The Donald is not someone to be trifled with.

Last night Cruz hit Trump a bit on the “birther” issue (which I won’t discuss now). Everyone thinks that he beat Trump to a pulp by getting him to admit that he only cares about it now that Cruz has a chance. Nope, not IMHO. What Trump demonstrated by that is an ability to focus on what actually matters, when it matters: if someone has little or no chance of being the nominee, it doesn’t matter one whit that they are a 14-year-old, foreign-born, foreign resident, born of foreign citizen parents, and a felon to boot (and thus unqualified in ANY way to be President), it simply doesn’t MATTER because they’ve got no chance of winning. BUUUUT, now that Cruz is cruising along (pun intended) nicely why, YES, now it DOES matter, now it IS worthy of discussion. Otherwise, why didn’t we have a conversation on it when Cruz graduated from law school? Oh, and Trump is absolutely correct that the Dems will challenge this in court - so it IS better to get this out in the open and dispose of the issue if it can be done - frankly, that is in Cruz’ interest.

Cruz did marginally better in the debate than Trump, IMHO. Frankly, that’s to be expected of a master of debate like Cruz. That’s part of why I like him, he’s as sharp as a tack with the right values, and I think that he’d make an excellent President. But he lacks something vital, at least at this point (again, IMHO), which is something absolutely critical in a politician: charisma. Trump has a bunch (not because he’s such a pleasant guy, but because you KNOW that he means what he says, that he’s got the courage of his convictions). Also, everyone knows who he is - Cruz is a newcomer on the national stage. Cruz’ day will come, but I don’t think that he will win the national even though he would be among the best Presidents that we’ve ever had. Trump can and likely will, first because we desperately need a change and, second, because Hillary has all of the charisma of a rotten tree stump (and, no, I really don’t have anything against rotten tree stumps - bugs gotta live somewhere, you know).

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