In the main Republican presidential debate Thursday evening, a storm raged and nothing changed.
Seldom has the status quo been preserved so raucously.
But in the junior varsity debate preceding the main event, the off-prime program for seven candidates so anemic they couldn't get to 3.5 percent in polls ... well, that was different. Something did, in fact, change there.
But let's dispense first with the main event.
Blowhard Donald Trump--the tallest talker since Tommy Robinson, and just as responsible--continued to be a monster hard to harm and impossible to kill.
He said wildly general and unsubstantiated things. He rambled in ways that couldn't possibly be diagrammed. He said nonsensical things brilliantly.
He was on his game, in other words.
When another candidate would have been destroyed, Trump wasn't even grazed.
Asked about incidents in which he had objectified women and insulted them physically, he cracked a joke about Rosie O'Donnell and assailed political correctness.
And the audience applauded.
At the very opening bell, Trump refortified his shtick as the conspicuous nonpolitician. Alone among the 10 candidates, he raised his hand on the first question to indicate he was not willing to promise that he would support the GOP nominee and eschew an independent candidacy.
Standing conspicuously center stage among politicians--that's the essence of his phenomenon.
That lone raised hand symbolized Trump's weird anti-politics insurgency. He should get a photograph and make it his campaign logo.
And, by the way, sometimes he said things that weren't actually wrong. Yes, he said, he's availed himself four times of bankruptcy reorganization laws. But so what? All big-time dealmakers encounter a few schemes that go south.
Watching Trump in the debate reminded me of watching that Batman movie--The Dark Knight--in which the late Heath Ledger played the Joker. The character was grotesque, but yet mesmerizing and perversely ingratiating. When he wasn't on the screen, you wanted him to come back.
Meantime, Jeb Bush continued to stagger as the cream of the mainstream. He said nice and pleasant and moderate things, none of which come to mind.
Scott Walker continued to bore. He contends only because he's from Wisconsin and Wisconsin is close to Iowa and because the Koch brothers like the way he smashes unions.
Marco Rubio seemed all right but looked like a teenager.
John Kasich continued to be the best of the bunch. He was a solid conservative congressman. He's been a solid conservative governor of Ohio. But he won't shy from a brave moderate stand, such as expanding Medicaid, accepting as the law of the land the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage and saying, yes--what of it?--I attended the gay wedding of a friend.
The rest of the candidates in the main event continued to be zany or offensive.
Rand Paul and Chris Christie deserved each other. Ben Carson was affably extreme. Ted Cruz was not affable about it.
It was as if Our Boy Mike Huckabee wasn't there. He got a chance for only two or three radio-voiced hyperboles. He did manage to rally with a predictable joke in his closing statement. He's always going mainly for the laugh, so it was a good-enough night for him.
And now to the thing that happened in the warmup debate of second-tier candidates ...
There was a clear winner, proclaimed practically by acclamation, both from pundits and poll respondents.
Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, spoke with effortless command and clarity, fashioning a standout performance that seemed even more triumphant in its contrast with the six others.
Challenged on her credentials--on being forced out at Hewlett-Packard and losing a U.S. Senate bid in California--she answered: "I understand leadership, which sometimes requires a tough call in a tough time. But mostly the highest calling of leadership is to challenge the status quo and unlock the potential of others."
She chided Trump and waylaid Hillary Clinton, which was the right combination.
Her dominance of the warmup debate was so great that the question between events was whether the main debate would produce such dwarfing headlines that the buzz and bump of her dazzling victory would be lost.
That didn't happen.
The night remained hers as Trump ranted and Bush staggered and Walker bored.
She should qualify for the top 10 in the next event, maybe replacing Christie or, better yet, Paul.
If Trump should fade--as you tend to think he must--the disaffected voters looking anew for an accomplished nonpolitician from the business world might find Fiorina, while much less a caricature, an intriguing option.
Trump with class and coherence--that's what Fiorina introduced in the junior varsity game.
It may be, though, that the absence of class and coherence is the key to Trump's success.
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John Brummett's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 08/09/2015