Marco Rubio was crisp and commanding. John Kasich looked like a guy you could plausibly imagine sitting in the Oval Office. Scott Walker and Rand Paul mostly did not. Trump’s problem, as Jeb Bush accurately diagnosed, was his obvious “lack of judgment and lack of understanding about how the world works.” It showed. What this debate really revealed was the limit of Trump’s possibilities as a presidential candidate. One of the debate moderators, the radio host Hugh Hewitt, captured this best when he expressed his annoyance that Trump couldn’t even manage to name his foreign policy advisers.
When Trump finds himself trapped, he does one of two things: he either lashes out or he starts showering an opponent with obsequious praise. Trump did a lot of both on Wednesday, and it made him look weak and desperate in a way he hasn’t before now. Confronted with his vile comments about Fiorina’s looks in Rolling Stone, Trump squirmed and tried to win the crowd’s indulgence by saying, “I think she has a beautiful face and I think she’s a beautiful woman.” On CNN’s split screen, Fiorina’s stone face was devastating. The same dynamic applied when Trump was reminded of how he insulted Bush’s Mexican-born wife, Columba. Trump stammered something about what a great person she was, but refused Bush’s demand for an apology. He looked like a heel.
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