Too bad this thread has to be recreated.
Here's a link to the old one, but let's move on. The Las Vegas debate featured the usual incoherence, lies and denials of obvious facts and truths, but there were some good-ish lines in the noisome bickering. My take...
Bush scored a big (YUGE) stroke with a single word, chaos. He's exactly right that Trump isn't talking about policies he could reasonably expect to put into effect, just one-liners that grab people by the emotions and pull them into a place where you can see that they are frozen like deer in the highlights. This will signal the start of a slow rise in the polls for Bush.
Christie nailed Rubio and Cruz for letting Senate debate tactics spill over onto the stage where, as he said, nobody gives a *censored*. They've never done anything consequential in their careers except talk about how great they would be if they were the most powerful person in the world. He made them both seem like liars, which in politics is another word for what they are, political animals. This won't help Christie, but it will hurt both Rubio and Cruz.
Carson's moment of silence in honor of the San Bernardino victims (about 3 seconds by my count) was his most coherent moment. He's toast.
For the life of me, I cannot fathom who exactly Fiorina thinks she is, Churchill? She's done nothing in her career except have one that sputtered out when she cratered one of the largest and previously most successful technology companies in the world. She actually said all the "Silicon Valley" companies would pitch in to help fight ISIS and was then followed up by someone else who pointed out that those very companies have proudly announced that they implemented unbreakable encryption so that the government can't read any of their user's emails.
Overall, it was a combination food fight and game of liar's poker. Every one of them is totally opposed to everything Obama thinks, says or does, but none of them really said they would do anything different other than ignore rational policy limits. They all stand for individual freedoms but want to gather tons more information about ordinary citizens so they can assure the citizenry that they will stop the next attack and keep them safe. It's apparently worth throwing out the Constitution in order to preserve it. Other than Trump, they won't ban all Muslims but want a rigorous vetting process that will keep them out, despite and ignoring the two years it takes now for a refugee to get here. Vetting Christians is much easier, just ask them if they are.
It's like watching yet another Chipmunks holiday (okay,
Christmas) movie where the first one was hysterical and when the newest one arrives you were already dreading it, but your kids make you take them, anyway.