Will Marathon Debate Shake Up Republican Primary?

Last night, CNN hosted the second GOP Presidential debate, aka Donald Trump Runs for President. In an endurance contest that went over three hours, sparks surely flew, though it remains to be seen if any of the candidates managed to move the ball downfield with voters.

Prior to the debate, Trump half-jokingly suggested he should charge CNN a multi-million dollar appearance fee–via a donation to a charity of his choice–because of the millions of viewers he’d draw. CNN clearly saw his point, framing the first quarter of the debate entirely around what other candidates think of the Don.

John Kasich finally called moderator Jake Tapper out on the farce and shamed him into moving along–a little bit. Cue cameras for a discussion about Dr. Ben Carson (second to Trump in the polls) and the "outsiders“ (Trump and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina), which of course brought the questions back to Trump and the things he said about the other candidates.

This of course gave Jeb Bush a chance to once again look like a kid getting scorned at the dinner table when he attempted to engage Trump. The former Florida Governor tried to show a little teeth, but tucking his gums only revealed that the fangs just aren’t there. Jeb’s campaign is losing air faster than a cheap balloon struck with a sharp pin–his hundred million-dollar war chest notwithstanding. His only chance seems to be a mass voter exodus from Trump.

Rand Paul gave a solid performance and continued to stand up to the louder voices on stage who have tried to shout him down on his appeal to a Reaganesque engagement with other world leaders, keeping the lines of communication open with countries like Russia and Iran. Nonetheless, the Senator from Kentucky didn’t seem to make up any ground, and I can’t see him staying in the race too much longer.

In her first debate on the big stage, a surging Carly Fiorina, who's polling as high as third in the early states, showed she could hang with the A-listers. For a political neophyte, she gave detailed (and rather hawkish) answers on foreign policy questions and handled her dismal record as CEO with HP fairly well. There wasn’t a moment when she didn’t seem like she was in the top half of the field and probably sold herself as a decent option for a running mate for whoever gets the nomination.

The most striking shift in tone was the departure from framing the debate around the idea that it’s a race to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House. Clinton’s name came up far less than in the first debate, mostly because of the even greater focus on Mr. Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul. The moderators played into Trump’s hand, focusing all of the softcore issues and reality TV show-style dishing on him, while saving the wonkier subject matter for candidates like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Chris Christie.

Rubio, who fared well in the opening debate, failed to stand out in the first half of last night’s event, while Cruz managed to corner the market on far right issues, leaving the Florida Senator and fellow right-winger Scott Walker (Governor of Wisconsin) in the dust. Rubio made some progress in the final hour and probably remains a potential VP candidate. Ohio Governor John Kasich again gave a solid account of himself as an experienced legislator with a broad command of the issues and could also be positioning himself for the bottom half of the ticket that he was short-listed for in both 2008 and 2012.

For long periods of time last night, it was easy to forget that Christie was on the stage, and the New Jersey Governor’s utter failure (he is only polling around 1 percent) to build any sort of momentum may be the biggest surprise of the race. Christie rallied in the final hour, but it remains to be seen if enough people stayed awake long enough to give him a boost. I got the sense that Trump probably held his ground way out in front of the pack (or should I say PACs). Carson, whose thin platform and layman understanding of most issues no Republican seems willing to even contemplate attacking, again managed to fare well while saying relatively little of substance.

In the end, I don’t think the race changed one bit in light of the debate. It’s still Trump and then everyone else. The trick now will not be to beat the Donald, but to position yourself as an alternative for if and when he implodes. Despite his mediocre debate performances and single-digit polling, that still might be Jeb Bush.

Earlier last night, in the so-called Happy Hour debate between "second tier“ candidates, George Pataki, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum had a much less crowded stage to compete on, even if less eyes were trained on it. After nearly half an hour of questions on Trump, the candidates managed to get to their own issues.

Santorum, a former Senator from PA who ran in 2012, and Graham, who’s been in Congress for 20 years, have had microphones in front of them for so long, that even casual political observers can be relatively sure what they’re going to say, and in Graham’s case it will–no matter the question–include the words ISIL and/or Radical Islam.

Jindal is probably equipped with one of the field's highest IQs, but his past attempts at suggesting even a small dose of moderation have left him just short of a tar-and-feathering. The unfortunate result on display last night was a candidate contented with simply throwing the most predictably stale of red meats to the base.

Pataki, who served as Governor of New York from 1995-2006, was clearly the grown up on the stage and was likely the only one who may have moved the needle enough to get on the big stage next time out. A moderate by today’s GOP standards, Pataki showed political courage in his responses, particularly when it came to pragmatism in areas like gay marriage and immigration reform.

Pataki practically laughed off suggestions that Kentucky Clerk of the Court Kim Davis was some kind of hero for keeping a government job and then refusing to follow that government’s laws, then pointed out the impracticality of the more hard-lined immigration platforms. His articulate and gutsy performance suggests he could bring much to the debate, and I’d like to see Huckabee, Walker or one of the other less productive main-stagers voted off the island to give him a shot.

The next Republican debate will be on CNBC, Wednesday, October 28, from the University of Colorado in Boulder.