The Republican candidates, other than Jeb Bush, seem to have decided to treat Donald Trump like a tornado, and steer clear. Credit Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty If last night’s Republican debate, in Las Vegas, had been the prize fight between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz that CNN promoted it as, many of the attendees would have demanded their money back, and rightly so. After more than two hours of ho-hum Obama bashing—and equally predictable talk about getting tough with ISIS and its sympathizers, enlivened only by Jeb Bush’s efforts to land a haymaker on Trump’s double chin—the New York billionaire gave the game away. He and Cruz, whom the campaign wallahs have now anointed as his most serious challenger, had met in a private sit-down a few days ago, where, evidently, they agreed to not throw any punches at each other—not in public, at least.
Thus, when CNN’s Dana Bash asked Trump about his recent statement that Cruz had behaved “like a maniac” in the Senate, Trump came over all soft and gooey. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “I’ve gotten to know him over the last three or four days, and he has a wonderful temperament.” With that, Trump leaned to his left toward Cruz, who was sporting a Princeton frat-boy grin rather than his dark Joseph McCarthy stare, and patted him on the back. “He’s just fine,” Trump said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Yes, the fix was in. When Bash asked Cruz about his statement to donors that Trump didn’t have the judgement to have his finger on the nuclear trigger, the Texan started waffling on about his two young daughters, Ronald Reagan, and some other stuff. For a second time, Bash asked him straight out whether he believed Trump had the judgement to be President. All Cruz would say was: “That is a judgment for every voter to make. What I can tell you is all nine of the people here would make an infinitely better Commander-in-Chief than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.”
With the Trump-Cruz main event having been cancelled, viewers were left with no option but to study the undercard, where the other seven contenders were looking to make a mark. There were some interesting exchanges for inside-the-beltway types, especially when Cruz and Marco Rubio started getting into it on immigration, surveillance, and a military strategy to defeat ISIS. But the overwhelming impression that the debate left was one of paradox.
For more than five months now, this has been a contest dominated by Donald Trump. According to a new poll from ABC News and the Washington Post, which was released only hours before the debate, Trump is twenty-three percentage points clear of his nearest challenger, Cruz. But here, in the final televised debate before the election year begins, virtually none of the other candidates were willing to attack Trump head on. Rather than castigating him as a demagogue, a megalomaniac, and a figure who would be an enormous political liability for the Republican Party were he to win the nomination, his opponents criticized Hillary Clinton, promised to protect America from rampaging jihadis, and squabbled with each other.
To switch metaphors in questionable fashion, it was as if they had come to accept that Trump represents a deadly higher force, a political tornado that can do severe damage to anyone who strays into its path. Rather than seeking to stand up to this twister, the candidates—Cruz and Rubio especially, but also Chris Christie and John Kasich—behaved as if they had decided to hunker down and hope the storm blows over the before the primary season ends, whereupon they can resume politics as usual.
The exception was Bush, a man whose house has already been flattened, and who is now living in the garden shed. After stumbling over his opening statement in typical fashion, the former Florida governor delivered a powerful rebuke of Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States. “Donald is great at one-liners, but he’s a chaos candidate,” Bush said. “And he’d be a chaos President.” Trump quickly shot back at Bush, saying, “He said that very simply because he has failed in this campaign. It’s been a total disaster.”
Unlike in some of the earlier debates, Bush didn’t let Trump get the last word. Evidently, some of the money he has spent on debate coaches was well spent. “This is the problem,” Bush said. “Banning all Muslims will make it harder for us to do exactly what we need to do, which is to destroy ISIS. … We need to engage with the Arab world to make this happen. It is not a serious proposal to say—to the people that you’re asking for their support—that they can’t even come to the country to even engage in a dialogue with us. That’s not a serious proposal. We need a serious leader to deal with this. And I believe I’m that guy.”
It was arguably Bush’s best public statement of the campaign: clear, to the point, and right. As the night wore on, he had some other good moments. Twice, he brought up the fact that Trump, as recently as September, had said, “ISIS is not our fight.” At one point, Trump suggested Bush was too weak, citing his favorable comments about Mexican immigrants. Rather than backing down, or seeking to explain himself, Bush responded with what might well have been the line of the night: “Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the Presidency. That’s not going to happen.”
From then on, it was clear that Trump, a thin-skinned fellow at the best of times, was peeved. He complained at length about CNN trying to goad Bush into attacking him, when it was clear to all that Bush needed no goading. And when Bush, after another testy exchange, repeated his line about insults not leading to the White House, Trump’s temper snapped: “Well, let’s see. I’m at forty-two, and you’re at three,” he said angrily to his tormentor. “So, so far, I’m doing better.” Trump went on: “You know, you started off over here, Jeb”—i.e. at the center lectern on the stage, where the leader in the polls stands—“You’re moving over further and further. Pretty soon you’re going to be off the end.”
It was schoolyard stuff, and all the more entertaining for it. What impact it will have on the campaign is an open question. After the debate, the consensus of the pundits appeared to be that Bush is too far gone to save. But the conventional wisdom has been wrong before. At the least, Bush’s improved performance will give his backers some hope that his campaign might still have life.
Trump, after he left the stage, didn’t seem inclined to discuss his altercations with Bush. By then, he had made his own bid for the morning headlines by stating unequivocally that he wouldn’t run as a third-party candidate. To be sure, this wasn’t exactly new news. Back in September, Trump signed a pledge to support whichever Republican candidate wins the primaries. During the past couple of weeks, though, there had been signs he might be rethinking his promise. But when, near the end of the debate, Hugh Hewitt, the conservative radio host, asked him if he was “ready to assure Republicans” that he would “run as a Republican and abide by the decision of the Republicans,” Trump said three times: “I really am.”
His face brightening, his irritation at Bush seemingly forgotten, he said, “I am totally committed to the Republican Party. I feel very honored to be the front-runner. And I think I’ll do very well if I’m chosen. If I’m so fortunate to be chosen, I think I’ll do very well.” The crowd at the Venetian, which hitherto hadn’t appeared to contain very many Trump supporters, broke into loud applause. “Polls have come out recently saying I would beat Hillary,” Trump went on. “I will do everything in my power to beat Hillary Clinton, I promise you.”
And so it goes on.
