I’m highlighting these exchanges, so you have some fun stuff to watch, but in seriousness, all of these candidates improved and many gave strong performances tonight. I was as surprised as anyone to see 11 candidates actually manage to give some substantive answers, have substantive disagreements, and discuss actual issues in between the scuffles.
Here are the time allocations from about halfway and 2/3 through. It felt like Huckabee and Walker talked less than the tally in the first tweet, even. It also felt like Rubio, once again, made the best of a very small amount of time in the beginning, though that did him no good in polls last time around. Enjoy while I grab more clips.
Times after 1st brk:
Trump 7:08
Fiorna 5:54
Bush 5:38
Cruz 5:21
Kasch 4:08
Huck 3:36
Walkr 3:10
Chrstie 3:08
Paul 2:53
Carsn 2:06
Rubio 1:41— Domenico Montanaro (@DomenicoNPR) September 17, 2015
Times, per WaPo
Trump 16:01
Jeb 11:32
Carson 10:18
Carly 9:58
Christie 7:21
Rubio 7:07
Kasich 6:55
Cruz 6:09
Rand 5:15
Walker 5:13
Huck 5:00— Saul Anuzis (@sanuzis) September 17, 2015
Walker to Trump: “We don’t need an apprentice in the White House. That’s what we have right now.” A good line from Walker early on before he went silent for far too long.
Bush vs. Trump on Trump’s wife and immigration views. Bush is right to say bringing his wife, Columba, into the fight is out of line, but he’s wrong to ask Trump to apologize on stage. Trump’s not going to do it, and Bush comes off like the class tattle tale.
And, the Trump riposte, which shows why Trump always matches up stylistically well against the rather low-key Bush even when Bush is in better form than last time around:
Trump goes full third-grader on Rand Paul early in the debate.
Trump vs. Carly in the “faces” facedown you knew was coming:
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