What are the odds on a civil debate Thursday night? Donald Trump told George Stephanopoulos this morning that he wants to see a friendly and positive approach in the first prime-time Republican debate, but that he’ll return fire if he’s attacked. Stephanopoulos tosses a few softballs at the Republican frontrunner, including on charges that he’s a flip-flopper, and Trump does a good job of putting the bat on them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZXyxj1S2k4

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said Wednesday that he hopes the first GOP-sanctioned debate this week is about the issues and not jabbing among those on stage.

“I don’t want to attack anybody. Maybe I’ll be attacked and maybe not. I’d rather just discuss the issues, but certainly I don’t want to attack,” Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“If I’m attacked I have to do something back, but I’d like it to be very civil,” Trump added.

Trump adds that those who attacked him frontally a few weeks ago have suffered in the polls since. “Graham’s at zero,” Trump notes. Perhaps, but Graham had less of a chance than James Inhofe’s snowball on the Senate floor in this race anyway.

Trump wants a civil debate with no attacks because he will be the central figure against which others will contrast themselves as voters start paying a little more attention to the race. That will be Trump’s problem in tomorrow’s debate. The two-tiered system for this event removed some of the nothing-to-lose candidates who could have raised their own profiles by going after Trump, but not all of them. Scott Walker will likely focus more on his accomplishments than Trump’s bluster, Jeb Bush doesn’t have much to gain in a brawl, while Ted Cruz has already said he won’t go after Trump. None of that’s true of Chris Christie, John Kasich, or even Marco Rubio. Kasich and Christie have notoriously combative personalities anyway, and Rubio wants to recapture the narrative vision of America from Trump, moving it away from Wall Street to Main Street, and he may be ready to take risks to do so.

If Trump returns fire in a forum for which he has little experience, he may either thrill his base or embarrass himself. Unlike some on stage with him, Trump really does have something to lose by getting into a battle now, especially if he comes across as uninformed and bullying. He may also end up breaking the rules set up for the debate, a contingency for which Fox News is diligently preparing, according to Politico’s Dylan Byers:

Perhaps the biggest challenge for the moderators will be dealing with Donald Trump, the braggadocious front-runner who, by virtue of his high poll numbers, will be standing center stage between Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. Trump has said he’s “not looking to attack” his rivals during the debate, but — knowing that Trump is always a wild card — the moderators say they’re prepared for anything.

“Listen, he’s going to be treated like everybody else,” Baier said of Trump. “We’re going to treat every candidate the same. Everybody is going to know all the rules going in; there is going to be a sound at the end of their time — it won’t be a pleasant sound.

“Are we thinking about different scenarios? Sure,” Baier added. “Our job is to make sure everybody plays by the rules.”

And if Trump ignores the rules?

“We have a plan,” Kelly assured POLITICO, “but we’re not going to share it with you.”

Rule-breaking is one of Trump’s strengths, though. If it looks like the Fox moderators are attempting to squelch him, Trump’s actual debate performance may end up not mattering at all. He’d emerge as the victim of an establishment attempt to silence him; striking him down in that manner may end up making Trump more powerful than we can imagine, a kind of Obi-Wan Kenobi with an interesting hair style.

A civil debate, on the other hand, might not work in Trump’s favor for that very reason. Perhaps his competitors might conclude that it would be better to let Trump talk, since his policy pronouncements have been less than clear. The debate will force Trump to start getting specific, and that has its own pitfalls, especially when his policies begin sounding much like those offered by others in the GOP. Bloomberg’s panel wonders whether Trump’s biggest risk might be sounding more and more like … a politician:

Andrew Malcolm gives readers some advice on how to watch the debate, garnered from a number of people, including me.