Debate Scorecard

Ted Cruz: Generally stayed out of the Rubio-Trump tangles, which is tactically smart, but gets few points for courage. Had good understated line, though: "Donald has a tenuous relationship with the truth."

Generally did a good job, but sometimes gives the impression that he is not actually a man, but rather a robotic man-suit piloted internally by a team of ultra right-wing ducks standing on each other's backs and quacking Fredrick Hayek quotes to each other.

Continues making the strategic mistake of telling people what he actually believes and what he'd actually do, which our current culture reads as "insincerity" and "sanctimony."

A-.

Marco Rubio: Had the flu and it showed, but hard to deduct points for that. Continued attacking Donald Trump, which was the right thing to do, but will probably wind up benefiting Ted Cruz or even (my God) John Kasich more.

Did not mention loving America for once, nor loving his grandpa, so I have to wonder Why? Why you hatin' on America and grandpa now, Marco?

Came in 2nd place, which is what we now know as "Rubio Gold." Spent the last twenty minutes insisting to a baffled audience that "no one expected us to be here" and "everyone said we would never get to this place" even though the debate schedule had been confirmed months ago and everyone was sent a map with clear directions.

Finished up by pandering to mid-40s Hispanic women by kinda-sorta insinuating he was the original lead singer in Menudo.

B.

John Kasich: As David French notes, pretended to be an Elder Statesman by completely staying out of necessary fights, which actually marks him as an AWOL Coward.

Continued playing to his core supporters of artisinal bong craftsmen and elderly public masturbators.

Debate moderators allowed him to glide out of his previous answer on coercing bakers to bake gay wedding cakes -- he was an enthusiastic supporter of forcing them to doing so -- by simply saying one shouldn't force them to do so, but should seek another baker. Well that's fine -- but if the law on the books says they must, your advice that one should avoid hailing them into court is, as usual for Kasich, cowardly and liberal. It provides them no protection -- Kasich is merely offering a "Don't be a dick" advisory to gay zealots. As none of the moderators pressed him on this, he was able to hide the fact that he still embraces the most toxic gay mafia view of the law possible.

Also, his face looks like you accidentally left it in your pocket and put it through the wash.

D-.

Donald Trump. Repudiated the Jeff Sessions Immigration Plan -- which was the only reason to support him -- by declaring he was "changing" and "softening" it because we need all these highly-skilled people to take our jobs. Then said he would be "flexible" on the wall and deporting illegals and pretty much admitted he'd said as much to the New York Times editorial board, and then, in case you were unsure if you'd heard him right, praised Marco Rubio's Amnesty plan as "fine" and a good opening bargaining position.

Kept talking about his hand-size and then, just when you thought this was getting weird, brought it back into a more sensible area by assuring the world that his penis size was sufficient for most.

He then added some substance to his foreign policy platform by declaring that he would force American soldiers to break the law and murder children.

On other issues, he was less reassuring.

His answers to questions about Trump University and the budget were somewhat uncomfortable to watch, in much the same way that it is uncomfortable to watch a bus full of circus clowns crash into a school for blind children and even worse the clowns were doing their "Gasoline Comedy" act that day and now all the blind children are on fire and the clowns are trying to squirt water on them with their stupid lapel-flowers but the flowers are just squirting out more gas and the children are crying tears of fire out of their Unseeing Dead Eyes and holy shit a couple of the clowns look like they have boners and they're chasing around the fiery blind children trying to rub up on them with these bobbling clown-boners with big red bulbs on their tips.

In other words, as Trump would say: Not the best. Really not terrific. A real mess!

Grade: I don't even know how to even start grading this. As far as a letter grade, I give a red X carved crudely through the face of a rotting pig with a bunch of stripper-glitter tossed on it.

posted by Ace at 07:15 AM

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