From a debate standpoint, there was virtually no debate. The Fox crew were on some sort of mission, if not an outright ego trip. They hogged much of the airtime, by directing often long queries against carefully isolated two-somes; obviously with greater hostility towards some candidates than others.
From the standpoint of oratorical techniques--I am a lifelong student of oratorical techniques--Rubio & Huckabee used their time rather well; so to a slightly lesser degree did Cruz & Carson. But none of the candidates had sufficient opportunity to show their rhetorical abilities, because of the ego or mission trip of the "moderators."
Also, for reasons of the same constraints, none of the candidates had much of an opportunity to develop any points with meaningful clarity--None!
Now, my personal bias from the start was in favor of Cruz and Trump, so I certainly appreciate Donald's ire at the way he was handled. But he needs to master two arts, which have served successful candidates throughout American history.
He needs to know when to use ire as an effective weapon & when to hold back an open display and effectively understate his displeasure with the choice of words that show he also has grace. (This can often be a very effective way to actually transfer the ire that you feel to a listener or supporter, who will feel the anger that you are suppressing by the understatement. Hollywood uses this concept endlessly to create emotional impact in movie dramas.)
Secondly, Donald needs to get a bit of Celtic lilt into his remarks, coupled with a Reaganesque smile. Again, this is a technique for stroking emotions. It is important, because ultimately most politics is driven by emotion.
Donald is completely right that there is no time to be "politically correct"; but for the same reason, it is essential to be as effective in reaching a multi-faceted, mnulti-emotion driven, audience, as possible.
It was a poorly designed event. The earlier debate, although it wasn’t a debate, was much better. The question and answer format gave each candidate the opportunity to express their views without being interrupted or attacking one another. Just like the later one, though, most of the questions were nasty. They were more like accusations than questions.
I agree the fox inquisitions were more concerned about preening and making themselves the center of the inquisition than conducting a debate there was very little debate. Wallace and Kelly were insufferable partisan hacks, Bier was tolerable. Hemmer and Martha in the first debate were far superior.
Trump was not prepared, Cruz, Carson and the Rube did well. Bush was tossed softball after softball and flubbed them everyone. My wife turned to me after he answered one question and said I thought W was supposed to be the dumb one!
Really put out with Fox, they put on a show for their moderators and the candidates were an afterthought.
Good post...I think you see it well.
Trump can sound like nails across a chalk board at times...lacking substance in his comebacks. He can do better but I think would do well with some coaching ...someone who has “The art” required to channel his style rightly without loosing The Trump in the process.