In a multiple candidate debate, it’s impossible to determine a “winner.” You can sense who had a good night, and who had a bad night. Last night’s GOP debate, in my view, produced none who had a really good night.

• Sen. Ted Cruz’ attack on the media scored points with folks who hate the media but, as we’ve seen in the past, those attacks don’t win elections
• Sen Marco Rubio deflected well the questions about his attendance in the Senate, but I don’t sense a lot of everyday people care much about his attendance to begin with
• Donald Trump and Ben Carson did nothing to distinguish themselves (other than dance on the bogus numbers in their tax plans and mostly fade from view in the debate) but they also likely did nothing to affect, good or bad, their basic popularity at the moment in the field.
• Many pundits are saying this morning that Jeb Bush’s candidacy died last night because of his poor performance and his meek attack on Rubio. He did not have a good night, but he also didn’t change the fact that he has a lot of money and staying power. I’d add, as has been the case with many candidates in the past, he should stop trying to be who his strategists tell him to be and just be Jeb. If that isn’t enough, then who wants the job?
  

The “media” had bad night too, or CNBC did at least, as the candidates took turns punching them in the nose but there was good reason for the punch. Their questions, on the whole, weren’t horrible. But the presentation was. I mean, every 10 minutes they stuck another of CNBC’s personalities at the end of the desk to take his or her turn mugging for the cameras – sucking up time that could have gone to the candidates – all to introduce their personalities to the larger-than-usual-audience to see if they can suck more eyeballs into watching the channel more often. My guess: it didn’t work unless you’re a viewer who likes to watch bombastic folks shout about the Fed every day.

To me, when it came to the performance of the candidates and the integrity of the moderators, both failed the character test. Most of us vote not just on issues but on the character of the candidates. If each of those candidates on stage last night were putting forth their true character, I’m not voting for any of them. Each was playing a role they and their advisers wanted them to play.  Carson and Trump may come closest to being who he is.  A problem with each is they seem ignorant of how the government bureaucracy works and how to make real change in that bureaucracy. Neither gives me (or most others) any confidence they can run a country. You can’t wish change. You also can’t believe the Holocaust could have been avoided if the Jews had guns or that you can negotiate your way to economic boom and world peace. Leadership traits matter.

Jeb is not being Jeb. Kasich just shouted too much (through he probably made the most sense). Carly Fiorina who, in the past, shined in debates, last night dulled the debate. Christie was Christie, kinda, in that he looked in the camera and “told the truth” but he didn’t always tell the truth, if you read the fact checker stories today. And the media? They aren’t being reporters out to find facts, they are performers out to get ratings and “build their brand” and the brand of their employers.

Time to take a step back and figure out what we really want from these debates and demand it. If you want performers mugging for the cameras, you’re a happy viewer. If you want information on which you can base a big decision – who leads this country and is commander-in-chief – you aren’t getting it.

               Heading into another Republican debate, a few thoughts:

• It is early to take polls as honest predictors of the outcome
• Polls I read say many voters, while stating a preference, have not finally made up their minds, a key finding  
  
• The electorate is angry and wants a change to what goes on in Washington. They are expressing that anger now. How that is expressed when votes are actually cast is another question
• Jeb Bush is falling further and further behind but don’t count him out

I still believe that Jeb Bush will be the nominee. I can’t say my confidence level is as high as six months ago, but that has less to do with Donald Trump and Ben Carson than it has to do with Jeb Bush and his performance on the campaign. He is being, well, Jeb Bush. Mr. Bush is not the most magnetic personality ever to run for president – but he was never supposed to be. He is not the most “energetic,” as Mr. Trump says, either. But he wasn’t supposed to be. He is, though, a solid, smart, experienced former governor who also is a policy wonk. He is a sensible guy with standards and the ability to stay calm in the face of crisis.

Trump and Carson are the flavors of the month(s) – although I think Dr. Carson has more staying power because the true evangelical voters in the party really like what he says. He has a “base” that he will keep for a while. Trump does not. As soon as folks see he is an empty vessel when it comes to what he wants to do as president, other than “make America great again,” be a marvelous negotiator and do “great things” for women, Hispanics and others, despite what he says about them, he will fade. Carson maybe not such since he does speak to an evangelical demographic, though he speaks in words and thoughts that offend so many other Americans.

Jeb has to get out of his apparent doldrums. Stop sounding like he wants to pick up his marbles and go home and show the electorate that he really wants to be president. If he does that, he’ll be the nominee. If he doesn’t, he will not be. In that case I look to Marco Rubio or John Kasich to be the nominee.

It’s three months before a vote will be cast. What’s going on now is preparation for the voting that will start in Iowa. You’re not seeing what is going on on the ground in Iowa and New Hampshire, where organizations matter to get your voters to the polls/caucuses. From what I read, Jeb Bush and Sen. Ted Cruz are putting together the best organizations. And don’t count on that Iowa vote to tell you how Jeb is doing either. He was never expected to do well in Iowa because he isn’t a hard-core conservative. His dad finished third in Iowa in his successful bid for the nomination in 1988, behind Pat Roberson and Bob Dole. His brother won in 2000 and/but he was considered a “true” conservative, important to that state's caucus voters . Organizations matter and Jeb has a good one, so does Sen. Cruz who is hoping to coalesce the right-wing vote especially with Scott Walker out of the race.

Trump makes for good copy and, more importantly in this day and age, he gets good ratings on TV, and Twitter, evidenced by the fact that he needs to spend little of his own fortune because he gets so much free publicity. It helps when you can get away with saying outrageous things. Jeb is not as good on TV, not as flashy or flamboyant, then again neither is anyone else in either party. And most of us don’t want a flamboyant president, we want a leader who is trustworthy and we can have confidence in.

It seems Hillary Clinton has a near-lock on the Democratic nomination – but she is capable of blowing up at any moment. She hasn’t performed well in the lead in her history but comes from behind well, as she has demonstrated yet again in the last couple of weeks. If she is the nominee, though, neither Trump nor Carson can beat her. Jeb can.

It’s still a long way from Tipperary and the Iowa caucuses.

 I watched nary a minute of the Benghazi hearing yesterday. I did read the coverage and watched a few snippets. Needless to say, I’m appalled. The GOP sure convinced me.  I am now totally amazed at how the Republican Party can continue to make Hillary Clinton look good. Did they expect, after all the years we have been exposed to the Clintons that she would pull herself into the fetal position at the questions asked by Republican Congressmen you’ve never heard of and didn't have anything that would pull out new information?

 And the questions they asked. Rep. Pete Roskam (R-Ill.) set the tone with  his very first question which partly was: “There were senior voices within the White House that were opposed to military action—Vice President Biden, Department of Defense, Secretary Gates, the National Security Council, and so forth. But you persuaded President Obama to intervene militarily. Isn't that right?" When Mrs. Clinton responded that many allies were pressuring the U.S. to take action Mr. Roskam, in trying to drive home the nail that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mrs. Clinton was, indeed, the secretary of state at the time, said “I think you are underselling yourself."
The fact was that the international community was concerned that Qahdafi would, without intervention, kill more of his own people and that Republicans with the stature of John McCain and Marco Rubio agreed.

Much later in the hearing, after multiple hours of sitting there listening to speeches and answering questions another GOP congressman asked if, when Mrs. Clinton went home the night of the attack, she was “alone all night.” To which Mrs. Clinton laughed and the Congressman, in all seriousness, said, “Do you think this is funny?” To which Mrs. Clinton responded at that late hour to be asked if she spent the entire night alone, was a moment of levity. And it was. Give me a break, people. You want to damage Mrs. Clinton’s campaign? This was not the way to do it.

All you proved is that you make the Keystone Kops look like Elliot Ness.

The Republican lawmakers also proved their lack of ability to understand a management process when they wondered why the 200-plus U.S. ambassadors around the world didn’t each have direct access to the secretary of state. “Mrs. Clinton, Ambassador Jones is on 2, Ambassador Smith on 3, Ambassador Doe is one 4 and we have 100 other ambassadors on hold or waiting a call back.” Yeah, that’s how to manage an organization with worldwide responsibility. Who needs a chain of command?

I will bet, though, that a few of those congressmen went home and were proud of their behavior and their questions. Bottom line? Mrs. Clinton wound up with the best week of her campaign. Biden dropped out. She’s pulling ahead in the polls and the GOP congressmen called her on the carpet, which can only accrue to her benefit any time they do it. She is strong. She is smart. She is good on her feet. So, why call her to a hearing that will only feature her at her best unless you, like any good lawyer, know the answers to the questions before you ask them and then ask only questions you know will elicit an answer to your benefit not your witness’?

And to focus much of the hearing on Sydney Blumenthal, known by insiders as a voice of unreason and kind of a pain in the butt, I mean…what did you hope to gain with that?? Inside baseball, at best. Even if you won that point, who cares?
So, score the hearing and the week for Hillary. An untrustworthy person who, thanks to that hearing, looks more trustworthy, not less.

Another result of the week and the hearing? This morning, Lincoln Chaffee dropped out of the Democratic contest. He should have gotten himself called on the GOP Congressional carpet. Coulda saved his campaign.

Lots of doings in the last couple days:

Biden Just Says No. Personally, I’m glad he’s not running. He’s earned a less stressful life with all he’s endured in his private life and all the pressures of his public life. So, it was a quixotic journey to get there but I think he’s made the right decision even though he wanted the office so badly. While I’m happy for him he got to make the announcement in the Rose Garden, I think it was most inappropriate. That is not the location for a Vice President to announce he isn’t running. Call me a traditionalist but that’s my view. And, using the President of the United States as a prop – well, that isn’t right either.

Paul Ryan Just Says Yes. The Congressman put some conditions on his agreement to be Speaker of the House but they were conditions for the right reasons – his survival both as a Speaker and as a husband and father. To see some in the GOP caucus whine that the job of a Speaker if 24/7 and to raise them money, meaning more time on the road than at home, well – where are their supposed family values? He wants to be there for his family. Horrors! Ryan doesn’t want the job but understands that if he takes it, it’s a huge responsibility for him. He doesn’t want the additional time suck of raising money for others, some of whom want to get him out of his job. Don’t those Members remember they just bounced the guy who raised millions for them in John Boehner? Besides it used to be that the Speaker’s job was to run the whole House not his or her own caucus. That’s why the Speaker doesn’t have to be a Member of Congress – the job is bigger than the party, or it’s supposed to be.

Who Will Just Say No to Trump? All of us “pundits” have been wrong each step of the way about Donald Trump’s candidacy exploding/imploding – calling Mexican immigrants mostly criminals, saying John McCain is not his kind of hero (his kind of hero doesn’t get captured, he said), making crude, rude and horrible comments about women, etc. etc. He has survived them all. I do not believe he will be the GOP candidate and one thing that could blow him up is what’s blown up politicians (and yes he is a politician) for years – hypocrisy. Sooner or later the piling up of his changing of positions (from quite liberal to quite conservative) will catch up to him. Sooner of later his “I’m really, really rich and do great things” without anything to back it up as far as a president goes, will catch up to him. And, my guess is, sooner or later his claims that he doesn’t have a super PAC will also implode. Too many media outlets are finding too many connections between Trump and the Make America Great Again Super PAC for him to be “unaware” or “unaffiliated” with what it’s doing. He’s attended fund-raisers for the PAC, his daughter’s in-laws are its major funders and his top paid political adviser is buddies with the folks involved with the PAC. Where there’s smoke…

 Just Say No to Distracted Driving. A study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has found it can take 27 seconds for a driver using a voice-activated entertainment system to regain full alertness after making a command from behind the wheel. The study, according to The Washington Post, says, “That means a car going 25 mph can travel the length of three football fields before a driver’s brain fully recovers from the act of dialing a phone number or changing music using increasingly popular in-car entertainment systems.” Please don’t get a false sense of security that using a hands-free device makes your ride any safer. It doesn’t.

The Democratic contest for its presidential nomination became, officially, a 2 1/4 -person race last night.

Hillary Clinton, though still appearing to me as a pol who’ll parse anything to gain a vote  (like another Clinton we all know) gave a strong performance and did nothing to diminish her position as the front-runner. Bernie Sanders was a bit of his curmudgeonly self, had the strong moment when he defended Mrs. Clinton by dismissing her emails as not relevant, and found himself on the defensive on guns and foreign policy, two of his week spots along with that “socialist” democratic thing that people still have trouble disassociating from socialism. But he also did nothing to diminish his standing as a strong second to Mrs. Clinton. He does need to learn that he has a microphone and need not shout.

The other three, including two former Republicans, did just enough to officially make them inconsequential. And, to make my first and final mention of one of them – Jim Webb – he was whiny for a guy who is barely running a campaign but found himself  shoulder-to-shoulder with two who are running hard. Exactly what did he do to do get on the stage in the first place? Same for Lincoln Chaffee. Seems like a nice enough guy…but a president? And Martin O’Malley, well, he seemed like a serious enough guy but with no strong presence.

Enough of them. The elephant who wasn’t in the room, Joe Biden, that other ¼ of a person in the race, probably lost his moment to run for president. Clearly, it seems Democrats are happy with the two top choices they have now. Hillary is on the offensive, kinda, about her emails and she’s playing more to the constituencies Biden was well positioned with, African Americans and the LGBT community. Joe’s moment has passed.

The Democratic debate seemed more civil than the Republicans…but that may be because there were just five of them on the stage instead of the cattle call that is the GOP race now and no one on the Democratic side has Donald Trump’s bombastic personality.

A word about Anderson Cooper, who I like. I thought he did a poor job as moderator last night but a strong job as a questioner. The two front-runners consistently ran over their time but he only criticized Webb (OK, one more mention) for complaining about time and telling him “you agreed to the rules.” True, so did the others.

And it was about 45 minutes before he brought Dana Bash, one of the best reporters working these days, into the questioning. And it was nearly two hours into the debate before Anderson offered Juan Carlos Lopez a chance to ask a question. Don Lemon, who was to introduce questions from Facebook members, botched his first chance and had technical difficulties which, for me is fine, because I think he’s a horrible news guy and I don’t understand why we needed a multi-hundred thousand dollar newsman introducing video clips that multi-million-dollar Anderson could have handled.

But Cooper (no relation) obviously had a set of excellent notes that kept him on point and on the records of what each candidate has said on the stump. He didn’t seem to miss an opportunity to call them on any of their say-one-thing- now-and-another-later moments. That was impressive.

So bottom line: Hillary wins. Bernie didn’t lose. The others should be exiting the race soon.

Yesterday, before Kevin McCarthy pulled the plug on his candidacy to be Speaker of the House, I wrote that it would be a game-change if Republicans and Democrats joined together to elect a speaker, thinking that would be McCarthy. I had folks tell me I was naïve and a dreamer to think that. I knew that then,  and I know it now.

But today, I think it’s even more important that this happen. Even if Paul Ryan who everyone (including me) thinks is the ONLY one who could step forward and win the speaker job with possible unanimous support on the GOP side, there is a moment here. It is a moment to seize back our government from a small band of insurgents who seem to want nothing but destruction as their goal. If those 30 or so Tea Party Republicans in the House can dictate who the Speaker will be they will establish themselves as the power brokers in the House. A minority of a minority running the government. They’ve shown signs they are doing it now, but controlling who is Speaker will further cement their dominance. Government shutdowns will be the norm. Holding up a budget over one item will be regular order.

It’s happened before in other countries and the result hasn’t been pretty, as another friend of mine pointed out yesterday. Instead of each side reacting with a partisan statement saying the other side is in disarray (as happened yesterday from spokesmen all the way from Senate Minority Leader Reid to the White House spokesman), can’t someone really put country ahead of party and reach out to the other side with a reasonable settlement to this? If that doesn’t happen, the Freedom Caucus will rule the roost.

They want a revolution? Let’s revolt against them. And the “us” is everyone, driven not by party but driven by country.
Bring on the calls of naivety.   

 
The U.S. House, to state the obvious, is a mess.

I’m no expert of House caucus politics or rules (if there are any) but I get the basics. And here they are:

The GOP caucus will meet today to pick its candidate for Speaker. Simple majority wins, which means likely that victor will be Kevin McCarthy. The Democrats also will pick a candidate, likely Nancy Pelosi. Those two will face off on the House floor where you need 218 votes to win. Republicans have 247 votes in the House. BUT the Tea Party types (who like to look good losing) are claiming they will vote in a bloc against McCarthy on the floor. If neither candidate wins 218 votes, the voting goes on in rounds until someone gets to 218.

That, of course, will take what the Tea Partyers don’t like to make on policy: a deal. They want their way or the highway. In this case, their way is likely getting a Tea Party seat at the leadership table, and their eyes are on Majority Leader, the chair McCarthy would vacate if elected Speaker. That’s a deal that could be cut today, IF McCarthy wants a back stabber sitting next to him at that leadership table.

Here’s where my dream scenario comes in:  A “simple” answer – if Republicans and Democrats in the House really want government to work – meaning compromises on both sides – McCarthy supporters and some Democrats could band together to elect McCarthy pretty easily. That will take deal-cutting, too. But isn’t that what most of us want? A House that will make deals (i.e., compromise) to get this country moving again?

So, a “simple” caucus exercise in each party could lead (in my dreams) to a game-changer in Washington politics and government: A House united rather than a House divided.

Wake me when it’s over.