(1)  I can’t hide my contempt for this party and those beholden to it.  Even the questions were horrible.  The moderators would mischaracterize what Obama has said and done, and then ask the candidates about it — like, “Last night in the State of the Union, Obama said that ISIS isn’t a problem.  Your thoughts on how we deal with ISIS?”  Which of course, Obama said no such thing.

(2)  The “news” to come out of the debate is how the “bromance” between Trump and Cruz is over, as they attacked each other.  Like who gives a damn.  Cruz went very low, saying that Trump had “New York values”.  This reminds me of the pilot episode of West Wing, where Josh, Toby, and CJ are having a summit with some rightwinger religious types, and one of them — Mary Marsh — makes a comment about Josh’s “New York sense of humor”.  Toby chimes, “She means ‘Jewish'”. [UPDATE: Found the video]

When asked what he meant by that, he said, “everyone knows”.  Jeez.  Talk about a dog whistle.  But then he talked a little about NYC’s liberalism.

But it was the first time that I can recall a presidential candidate dissing a part of the country intentionally.  Trump responded by saying William F Buckley came out of NYC and then pivoted to 9/11.  In doing so, he “won” the exchange, but I think he could have pounded Cruz at that point, but pointing out how Cruz voted against hurricane relief for NY and NJ (with Hurricane Sandy) but voted for hurricane relief for Texas (his home state).

(3)  Meanwhile, there was the debate within the debate, with Rubio, Bush, Christie, and Kasich battling for the mantle of the “establishment” candidate.  Bush did pretty well, but they all did in their own way.  Rubio I thought did not have his best night — he seemed a little shrill.   He and Christie really battled it out for who hated Obama/Clinton the most.  Christie actually may have gone to far by calling Obama a “child”.

(4)  Carson was there.