The third Republican debate is over. Here’s what we learned:
- There were tricky questions for Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, about missing a lot of votes in Congress, for Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, about his contrarianism ... and one about fantasy football that Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, spiked in the end zone. “We are $19tn in debt, we have Isis and al-Qaida attacking us, and we’re talking about fantasy football?” he exclaimed.
- Cruz got cheers for attacking the media, successfully turning the crowd against the moderators by saying the quality of the questions was “why the American people don’t trust the media”. The moderators’ performance was also decried afterward by Reince Priebus, the national Republican chairman, on Twitter.
- The crowd booed one moderator for pressing Ben Carson, the retired pediatric neurosurgeon, on whether his appearance on the website of a company later accused of false advertising did not reflect badly on his judgment. Carson said he had nothing to do with the company.
- It emerged through fact-checking, however, that Carson had in fact performed in a video for the company. The episode was representative of an uneven night for the doctor.
- Rubio repeatedly turned tricky questions into strong applause lines. Pressed on having to liquidate a retirement fund even after a $1m book deal, Rubio quipped: “And I used it to pay off my loans. And it’s available in paperback!”
- Jeb Bush stumbled in trying to attack Rubio for not showing up for work in the Senate, and reverted to flat stump speech-talk when he got a chance to talk about his economic plan.
- Donald Trump, the erstwhile frontrunner, turned in an uncharacteristically short-winded performance, denied ever having made a criticism of Rubio that was printed on his website and used his closing statement to brag about having held the debate to two hours instead of three.
- Everyone from the audience to the moderators to the candidates to the online audience seemed thankful to Trump for that.
- The other four candidates – former tech CEO Carly Fiorina, Ohio governor John Kasich, Senator Rand Paul and former governor Mike Huckabee – seemed to hold their places without breaking through. The possible exception was Kasich, who had a couple of persuasive moments of exasperation at the “fantasy” plans for entitlements and immigration presented by his rivals.
