DAILY BEAST COLUMN…
Donald Trump
Style: B-
Still gets most excited when he can talk about walls and winning. Because someone has a gun named Ben Carson at his head, he said nice-ish things about other candidates, though “You should let Bush talk” might also be the night’s sickest burn.
Substance: F
Rand Paul ripped the China-bashing right out from under his feet, and it becomes more and more clear that Trump is less a gifted public speaker than a human beat-box, spitting out variations of the same sounds over and over when pressed. Claimed to be Putin’s “stablemate” at one point, which is the kind of thing Santorum warned us about.
Ben Carson…
Substance: D+
When he talked about the people who had died from drug overdoses during the time it took to have the debate, he resisted the urge to call them moral failures. On the other hand: Flubbed his answer on ISIS by parroting the Trump Doctrine: “How do we make them look like losers?” At one point attributed the growth of the American economy between 1776 and 1876 to “entrepreneurship,” which is probably a correct representation of how the white people of that period would explain their success as well… (more)
