What Everyone Seemed To Miss After The GOP Debate

It’s been 22 hours since the 9pm debate began Thursday night in Cleveland, Ohio. The last 20 hours have been filled with talk of winners and losers, moderator decorum, and howls from every conceivable angle. What have we learned?

In a shocking turn of events, those who loved The Donald at 9pm yesterday, still loved The Donald at 11pm. Their mission over the last 20 hours has been to slam the FOXNews moderators and praise Trumps’ courage at standing alone as the only candidate willing to jettison all hope of a Republican victory in 2016 with a 3rd party challenge.

More astonishingly, establishment Republicans still support the establishment candidates. Not one big government Republican came out after the debate and said, “You know, I’ve been for Jeb Bush for months, but after watching this debate, gosh, that Ted Cruz really is impressive!”

After Rand Paul went toe to toe with the raucous Chris Christie, none of the Rand Paul supporters said to themselves, “Damn it, that Christie is right! Screw the Fourth Amendment!”.

There are many wings to this Republican Party and each candidate is drawing upon their own base within the party. Rand Paul and Donald Trump actually had the easier job. Rand Paul had to inspire his libertarian-leaning Republican Base, convince them he was willing to fight, and that their donations would not be given in vane. Meanwhile, Donald Trump just had to be Donald Trump. Easy-Peesy.

Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, and Marco Rubio had the most difficult job. They are all fighting over the conservative Republican Base. This is a base comprised of Constitutionalists, grassroots activists, and Social Conservatives. These were the candidates that needed to have the biggest nights. They all did well. There were no knock out punches thrown. They introduced themselves, their identities, their political philosophies, and highlighted the central themes of their particular campaigns.

On the other side of the Republican divide we saw Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and John Kasich attempt to appeal to the establishment wing of the Republican Party. This was maybe the most interesting grouping to watch and evaluate. I can’t remember anything Jeb Bush said last night, to be perfectly frank; but Kasich, whom I absolutely loathe and would never vote for under any circumstance whatever, had a great debate. He was overly emotional and caring, which led many analysts to assume that he might have crossover appeal to moderate Democrats. Also, if Jeb Bush isn’t going to show up to these debates and John Kasich does, the Governor of Ohio has a real shot at earning the full throated support (and most importantly the money) of the billionaire class and their underlings.

It seems obvious to me that John Kasich and Carly Fiorina are in this campaign to win the Vice Presidential nomination for the Republican Party. After last night, however, Governor Kasich might just think he has a chance to win this thing. That’s the storyline everyone’s missed. Can Jeb Bush and his Goliath SuperPAC actually be dethroned by the Governor of Ohio?  It’s an interesting question and in the next debate, we’ll see how much of the hype Governor Kasich has bought into; because if he thinks his real competition is Jeb Bush, he’s going to have to start making the case for why the establishment Republicans ought to vote for him over Jeb. This is risky, because what he really wants is to be Jeb Bush’s VP… but maybe, just maybe, Jeb Bush might have to fill another position held by his illustrious father: Vice President of the United States. We’ll see.