Last night was the final Republican debate before the New Hampshire primary election.  It started with mind numbing incompetence.  Ben Carson didn’t hear his name, so he kind of hovered off stage while the other candidates just calmly walked past him.  The moderators didn’t even notice he was missing.  Donald Trump showed up and decided that he would stay by Ben Carson.  I am not sure why.  Eventually they did announce Carson loud enough so even he could hear and then announced Trump.  Incredibly, one of the other candidates had to remind the moderators they had also forgotten John Kasich.  This looked like a bad SNL parody of a debate.

There was a little dust up between Cruz and Carson, but it didn’t matter. The problem for Carson is that he made it easy to understand why the Cruz campaign thought he was toast.  If he wanted to make Cruz look like an evil creature from the dark side, he came up a bit short.  Instead, Carson looked pettish, weak and pathetic.  This will have little impact on Cruz.

Christie took on Rubio and both lost big time.  Rubio was humiliated and had a Quail/Perry moment.  He literally kept repeating the same talking points right after Christie ripped him for repeating talking points.  It was awful.  I think the image of Rubio as the smooth campaigner who can beat Hillary Clinton was shattered into oblivion.  Christie, on the other hand, came across as an ass, and this probably hurt him almost as much as it hurt Rubio.

Donald Trump was hammered by Bush with regard to eminent domain and it stuck.  At one point Trump was literally booed.  I don’t think that was all Bush supporters.  Trump already had unfavorability ratings north of 60%.  Odds are they are even higher after last night.  If the pundits don’t think Trump was hurt by this, they were not watching the same debate.

Trump is at his maximum.  The only place he can go is down.  The only question is how far.  Rubio lost big time and he is likely to shred support.  Cruz is likely to gain the most; Kasich is also likely to gain some.  The remainder of the candidates will either stay the same or drop even further.

The pundits are in a state of shock.  They cannot believe what is happening.  To them, Ted Cruz is the ultimate nightmare.  They just don’t like him.  They can’t understand why anyone would like him. They do not grasp the level of anger and frustration at the Republican establishment.  They know Trump is damaged goods.  They know Rubio is unlikely to recover from being humiliated by Christie.  They keep hoping that one of the governors will surge to the top because deep down they know that right now everything is pointing toward President Ted Cruz.

The pundits also missed something else.  Only one man on that stage looked and acted Presidential.  That was Ted Cruz.  He was the only adult on the platform.

TDM