The elephant WAS in the room

But he left shortly after the opening and ambled over to MSNBC and CNN, where the circus reconvened.

Moderator Megyn Kelly asked Senator Cruz to address “the elephant not in the room,” referring to his absent rival. “I’m a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly,” replied Cruz, getting the “Trump portion out of the way.” Read more.

It will be a long time before Ted says something I agree with again.  Or maybe just a few minutes.

Cruz later criticized the moderators, suggesting that they were trying to incite his rivals to gang up on him. “If you ask one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage,” said the Texas senator, in another mocking reference to the absent GOP frontrunner. Read more.

Despite these clever moments, it was not Cruz's finest hour last night.  It actually may have been his worst, in a nasty exchange with Marco Rubio on immigration.  And it almost surely was Rand Paul's best, as well as Jim Gilmore's in the undercard.  John Kasich and Chris Christie did not advance whatever their remaining prospects are.  Carly Fiorina was terrible and Ben Carson is just out of his element.  There's a reason these two candidates' numbers deflated just as rapidly as they inflated.  Even diehard Republicans see them for what they are.

As for Trump's counter-event, it seemed both understated and overblown, certainly in the eyes of his supporters.  Later this morning the ratings for both of last night's reality shows will be announced, and one side will have something to brag about.

Update: Nothing for anybody to brag about.

Thursday night’s Fox News/Google GOP Debate attracted better ratings than candidate Donald Trump’s counter-event and the previous Jan. 14 Republican presidential debate on Fox Business that featured the billionaire real estate investor and reality TV star. 

[...] 

According to CNN Money, the main stage portion of Thursday night’s debate on Fox News drew in 12.5 million viewers. The previous Republican presidential debate on Fox Business attracted 11 million viewers. MSNBC and CNN reported a combined 2.7 million person viewership during Trump’s fundraiser for veterans. 

Though last night’s debate beat out the previous contest, it was the second-lowest rated GOP debate of the 2016 campaign season.

Ted Cruz will emerge from Iowa next week as the last chance to stop the Trump train, because he's doing all the little things a politician has to do to win there.  If he upsets the Donald next Monday night, you shouldn't be surprised.

Democrats also squabble about their debates

Two days ago the Manchester (NH) Union Leader, the newspaper of record in the Granite State, got together with MSNBC and scheduled a "unsanctioned" (not approved by the DNC) Democratic candidates debate, to be held on February 4 and moderated by Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd. That prompted Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley to say yes, and Bernie Sanders to say no, rationalizing...

“DNC has said this would be an unsanctioned debate so we would not want to jeopardize our ability to participate in future debates,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told the AP.

Yesterday, Debbie Wasserman Schultz shot the idea down.

“We have no plans to sanction any further debates before the upcoming First in the Nation caucuses and primary, but will reconvene with our campaigns after those two contests to review our schedule,” she said in a statement.

Late yesterday, Sanders made a counter-offer.

Sanders’ campaign released a statement late Wednesday calling for additional debates in the Democratic primary, but with specific provisions.

They want one each in March, April and May. All three must not be scheduled on a Friday, Saturday or holiday, and all three must include Martin O’Malley as well as Sanders and Clinton.

“If the Clinton campaign will commit to this schedule, we would ask the DNC to arrange a debate in New Hampshire on Feb. 4,” the Sanders campaign’s statement said. It noted that Sanders has called for more debates since the beginning of the race, and accused Clinton of wanting few.

Sanders’ campaign said Clinton now wants more debates because “the dynamics of the race have changed and Sen. Sanders has significant momentum.

“Sen. Sanders is happy to have more debates but we are not going to schedule them on an ad hoc basis at the whim of the Clinton campaign.”

No response yet from Deb.  More from The New Civil Rights Project on this development.  Martin O'Malley saw an opening and took a shot.

Martin O'Malley is pissed at Bernie Sanders. With the Democrats on track to add a new debate for their presidential candidates between Iowa and New Hampshire, the long-shot candidate ripped into Sanders (who has yet to agree to this debate, while Hillary Clinton has) with an odd charge. He claimed that Sanders' public calls over the summer for additional debates had been "totally disingenuous" and that Sanders had privately worked against more face-offs being added to the lineup. "Bernie Sanders didn't want any more debates, from the beginning," O'Malley said following an event in Grinnell, Iowa, on Wednesday night. 

Speaking with reporters from Mother Jones and MSNBC, O'Malley seemed to fault Sanders more than Clinton for the limited number of debates on the Democratic side. The number of debates was set by the Democratic Party, and the rules it established prohibited candidates from participating in debates that were not sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. O'Malley claims that, once these rules were announced, his campaign reached out to the Sanders camp seeking their support in pushing for more debates. But, O'Malley says, Sanders declined. "We knew as soon as those rigged rules came down, we knew that if [Sanders] would agree to do more debates, we would have more debates, but he would never agree," O'Malley said. "He didn't want more debates." O'Malley's charge, however, is a bit hard to square with Sanders' actions at the time. The Vermont senator was in fact sending letters to the DNC and posting petitions to his website rallying supporters behind more debates.

Because it's MO'M, nobody's paying attention.  I feel bad for the guy that even his temper tantrums are under the radar.  I'm figuring that the next time I blog about him, it's that he's dropping out.  Less than a week from now.

As for Clinton... it's all going to be okay.  Really and truly.

"Let's watch losers debate the man who isn't there"

One No Trump.

Whee, one more Republican debate before Iowa votes, after which somebody will win the Iowa caucuses and nobody will drop out and we’ll have a million more debates, even after Hillary Rodham Clinton’s two terms as president are over. And it’s tonight! What’s going to happen? We don’t know, do you?

It gets a lot NSFW after that, Wonky-style.  Here are YouGov's polling results on Trump's boycott; while he continues to lead in Iowa, even pulling the evangelical vote there, a plurality (43%) in the YG survey deem his withdrawal from tonight's Fox debate  'unacceptable'.  But like many others at this point, I think Trump is going to win the Republican nomination, mostly because nothing he has done has slowed his roll.

As for tonight, Rand gets back on stage, while Carnival Cruz takes the center. And look who the cat dragged in; why, it's Jim Gilmore, fighting his way back to the kiddie table.  Too bad it's way too late to matter; the world in which Ted Cruz is looking like the only alternative to Trump is causing some queasy stomachs in the GOP.

Some powerful Republicans are dismayed at what this election cycle has yielded. Party officials (last) week declared themselves against Ted Cruz. But none, with the exception of the former Alaska governor, will endorse his top rival — Donald Trump. 

Cruz and Trump kicked off their campaigns as radical candidates pit against the stale "establishment," then rose to take the top spots in national and early state polls. Now "the establishment" must choose which they'll support for the nomination. 

Cruz's week of hard hits got worse (last) Thursday. Five Republican senators told CNN they didn't want Cruz to win, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn expressed concern with the race. The AP reported one Republican senator vowed to vote for Democrat Bernie Sanders before Cruz, though the senator denied it, according to the Charlotte Observer. 

That comes after the Republican governor of Iowa, the first state to host a primary caucus, announced he wanted Cruz to lose, and after Bob Dole, a former Republican presidential nominee, said he preferred Trump, who also (last) week got the endorsement of Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin.

Tonight's spotlight dance for the Cuban Canuck may come at a perfect moment for him to surge as the voting is set to begin ... or it could just be another missed opportunity.  Don't watch tonight; I'll do that for you and Tweet some of the best laughs in the top right column.