What We Learned from the Last Republican Debate of 2015

After Tuesday night's Republican presidential debate, Americans—at least those who have mustered the strength to make it this far—will have viewed nearly 15 hours of insane Republican Kabuki theater, devoting time and sanity that we will never get back to watching five episodes of what has become the worst show on television this fall.

The media—and the CNN moderators in particular—stressed that Tuesday's debate, more than any of the others, was important: the grand finale before the real election year; the "Christmas dinner" debate, as moderator Hugh Hewitt put it dramatically—the one American voters will be talking about when they decide to torment relatives on Jesus's birthday. Because, you know, 'tis the season.

At this point, though, it's hard to imagine that anything the candidates said Tuesday night will change much over the next 45 days, before the first voters cast ballots in 2016. So as much as CNN execs wanted a " slugfest" for its ratings, in the end, Tuesday's debate was basically an end-of-year branding event for the Republican presidential campaigns—which was just as scripted and boring as it sounds, even if the debate was supposed to be about Radical Islamic Terrorism and other threats that scare voters in the night.

For most of the candidates, the CNN debate provided one last chance to keep their campaigns above water for another few weeks, before the inevitable drowning in the Iowa Republican caucuses in February. It was also the first debate where the GOP finally seemed to take seriously the idea that Donald Trump could be the party's presidential nominee, and watching that realization dawn on the rest of the Republican candidates Tuesday night made for some Apprentice-grade TV. Here's what we learned.

Donald Trump

What he needed to do: Avoid revealing the elusive Achilles heel that neither his Republican opponents nor the media have been able to find.

What he did: He called the undercard debaters "good guys." He called Bashar Al-Assad "a very bad guy." He said (again) that he'd build a wall, and that he's already built a great company. He talked about his "ah-mazing" poll numbers. He made fun of Jeb!, and made ready-to-GIF faces anytime someone else dared to question the Trump juggernaut. And he swore he wouldn't run as a third party candidate, coming full circle from his first debate appearance, and backtracking on threats he made as recently as last week.

At this point, though, no one—least of all Trump's current party—seems to know if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, or if it even matters anymore.

Ted Cruz

What he needed to do: Cruz's whole campaign strategy has centered on not attacking Trump, and instead holding out for the once-presumed to be inevitable day that the Trump Wave died out, leaving a trail of white male conservatives for one Senator Cruz to swoop in and scoop up.

But this past week, as Cruz soared to first place in Iowa polls, word got out that his campaign's self-imposed gag order had expired: in leaked reporting from a private meeting, the Texas Senator questioned the GOP frontrunner's "judgment"—and while you can hardly call that insult, Trump took it as such, firing back that Cruz was a "little bit of a maniac." So going into Tuesday's debate, Cruz was positioned as Trump's freshest target—all he had to do was hold The Donald off.

What he did: Cruz is obviously a solid debater. The Princeton debate champ is sharp, and he knows how to speak to his base. How else do you explain starting a closing statement by staring at the camera and just saying, sternly, "judgment"?

But that performance only works the first couple of times. Cruz on Tuesday night was a repeat of Cruz every other night, linking every misstep in recent American history to Barack Obama and his liberal buddies, and repeating the words "Radical Islamic Terrorism," regardless of what he was supposed to be talking about. At one point, he even awkwardly dodged a question about killing innocent women and children in war.

The highlight of Cruz's night, though, was a lively fight with his fellow 44-year-old Cuban-American senator, Marco Rubio, over an immigration bill that died years ago. It was a surprisingly substantive debate, tackling policy details on the complex issues of border security, legal immigration, and who flip-flopped faster, but by that point in the debate, everything was already starting to blur together into one giant, hour-long sound byte. And in some ways, that's just what Cruz is: an extended sound byte running for president.

Marco Rubio

What he needed to do: There is still a roving pack of Republicans somewhere out there in Florida who believe Rubio will be the party's candidate: young, handsome—and Latino!—he's the GOP's Bill Clinton in 2016, but without the saxophone and the Big Macs. On Tuesday night, Rubio had to live up to that small hope, and show he could yank the party out of the Age of Trump and into that "New American Century" he's always talking about.

What he did: Anything but that. In my notes, I jotted down less about what Rubio said than any other candidate besides Ben Carson (and believe me, that's saying a lot). And that's because he didn't have much to offer on Tuesday night. He never truly went after Trump, sticking to safe attacks against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—who basically became the same person during this debate—in every response he gave. If Rubio wants to be the young, energetic one, then he should probably start acting, you know, young and energetic.

Jeb!

What he needed to do: Avoid dying a slow political death on national television.

What he did: Survive—at least, for now. Bush was one of the more animated performers of the night, seizing every chance the debate moderators gave him to spar with Trump, who he called a "chaos candidate," venting, in his own Jeb! way, the pent-up anger he has toward the brash billionaire who destroyed—and humiliated—his once all-but-assured ascent to the GOP throne.

Ben Carson

What he needed to do: Who knows?

What he did: Honestly, Ben Carson is just fun to watch. This is someone who, it's safe to say, will not be leading the free world anytime soon, and we, the people, are left trying to figure out why he ever joined this shitshow in the first place—which, as it turns out, can be a fun debate drinking game. On Tuesday, Carson described his ISIS strategy like he was playing a Call of Duty game, and started his first response off with a moment of silence for the San Bernardino victims—a sudden moment that lasted all of three seconds. And naturally, he blamed a lot of things on the fact that we're all too "PC." Carson was like that guy at the party who is so high that every word he says and gesture he makes seems scripted by some almighty comedy writer. Except when he talked about children's eyes in response to a question about killing innocent children—that was some seriously twisted shit.

Carly Fiorina

What she needed to do: Get relevant.

What she did: In the second debate, Fiorina made headlines for becoming Trump's de facto adversary, as she defended herself against his harsh remarks that her face wasn't fit for the White House. Since then, though, her significance in this race has basically evaporated, and she continued that journey into political purgatory on Tuesday night. Her redundant attacks on Hillary seem to be aimed solely at reminding viewers that she, too, is a woman—a novelty in Republican politics, but not one that bears repeating that many times over 15 hours.

For some reason, the former Hewlett-Packard executive fancies herself some kind of reigning neocon—and she gained a bit of traction by listing tech products that law enforcement agencies have had trouble tracking—but was fuzzy in explaining what she would do to fix that, or why, for that matter, she thinks she's more experienced than a former Secretary of State when it comes to foreign policy.

Chris Christie

What he needed to do: After months of pouring virtually all of his campaign's money and resources into New Hampshire—and basically moving there himself—the New Jersey governor has managed to rise to second place in the early primary state. Sadly, New Hampshire now seems to be the only place where anyone likes Chris Christie. Having alienated his home state Republicans with his devotion to a 2016 presidential run, Christie had to convince the rest of the party not to hate him too.

What he did: In classic Christie fashion, he dropped the 9/11 card. And the children card. And the "I was a federal prosecutor" card. He dropped every card in his deck of tears, and also somehow managed to call the sitting president a "feckless weakling" after declaring that a Christie White House would basically launch World War III. That's not to say that any of this was successful—in truth, Christie probably scared more people than he convinced. But Republican voters sometimes go for that kind of thing.

John Kasich

What he needed to do: Tone it down from the last debate, in which he was widely panned for talking louder than anybody else, and generally being a whiney RINO that no one will ever remember ran for president.

What he did: When Kasich began his opening statement by claiming that his 15-year-old daughter hates politics, I cringed. Then, when he said that the Paris conference, which just produced one of the most significant climate change accords in history—a treaty that many scientists are saying could save mankind, at least temporarily—should have focused instead on the War on Terror, I shook my head in shame. We have lost John Kasich, once and for all.

Rand Paul

What he needed to do: Try not to come across as the slightly weird guy whose actually reasonable statements during the debates get drowned out by an overall impression of weirdness. In other words, try not to repeat his father's entire political career.

What he did: Paul appears to have a remarkable capacity for remembering Senate votes—and has spent quite a bit of time devoted to this task. I mean, this is a guy who filibustered both the Obama administration's drone policies and the renewal of the Patriot Act, talking about arcane federal privacy laws for literally hours on end. On Tuesday night, he attempted to throw some legislative trivia at his opponents, highlighting the other GOP candidates' voting records and ideological missteps.

But Paul tripped up in explaining just where these other Republicans went wrong, at least in a way that would be comprehensible to an average conservative voter. And that, perhaps, is Paul's problem: He is too serious in an election dominated by hyperbole, and hoopla, and too much of an ideologue to make real sense as a presidential candidate.

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