The Republican debate last night was unenthusiastically vanilla compared to the Fox News circus last month.
All candidates learned from their last debate to tone down their spit-fire shots at each other.
Rand Paul’s opening statement and answers demonstrated the knowledge of his de facto defeat in the primaries. He barely made this debate, and I’d be surprised if he makes it on the stage for the next GOP debate.
He tried to steal the debate when they mentioned marijuana decriminalization, but Jeb Bush stole the conversation by admitting to smoking marijuana almost 40 years ago. Paul is done.
Donald Trump seized the opportunity to feed into Paul’s weakness by stating that he shouldn’t be on stage. The bruised libertarian is going through the motions of running for president, but he knows he’ll never win.
Carly Fiorina came off as the front-running adult in this debate, as she was one of the few candidates with actual foreign policies. She might be the only hope for the GOP.
Perhaps the best part of the debate was when she beautifully and tactfully destroyed Trump when the moderators asked her to comment on his remarks about her looks.
“I think women all over the country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” Fiorina said.
He then borderline flirted with her and said she was a very beautiful woman as she politely rolled her eyes.
Fiorina didn’t dodge any questions. She was straight-forward and laid her policies down plainly. The other candidates could learn something from her instead of blaming Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for every problem facing our nation.
Her views are as dimwitted as any run-of-the-mill Republican, but at least she doesn’t dodge questions. Her confidence is her largest asset.
Fiorina’s stance on drugs come from personal experience. She buried her child whom she said died from drug addiction. While her stance on drugs is flawed and blinded by her personal experience, she had an elegant way of portraying her views that almost had me change my stance for a second.
Donald Trump even toned himself down, but he was still an unapologetic rude man-child.
He refused to apologize to Jeb Bush’s wife, and he was the only candidate who vocally condemned people for speaking Spanish because God forbid Americans learn another language.
Trump broke with the conventional Republican talking points when he mentioned his tax plan. He rightly said that wealthy Americans should pay higher taxes, which uncomfortably had me siding with a toupee-wearing man with a terrible tan line around his eyes.
His most idiotic moment was when he said vaccines caused autism. Vaccines just don’t cause autism. Read almost any medical book or ask any doctor.
The rest of the candidates came off as so indistinguishably vanilla that they’re not even worth mentioning. They were relatively unexciting and didn’t offer anything of substance.
The GOP may have come off to a rocky start, but their presidential pool finally has some leadership. It’s not the establishment candidates like Bush or Ted Cruz that most people expected. The most interesting people with a shot at the White House are Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina.
Cody Sibley is a 19-year-old mass communication sophomore from Opelousas, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter at @CodySibley.