"The Pundits Have It All Wrong. Ted Cruz Is a Real Threat For the Nomination."

Says Rich Lowry. I was just thinking that myself.

The GOP debate... watch it with me.

1. The "undercard" debate has started. Chris Christie is emitting empathy for the economically downtrodden.

2. Jindal seems to contain an inner robot. Watch this. I've watched it 10 times and cracked up every time:



3. The main debate is about to begin. My son John is live-blogging here.

4. Lou Dobbs is babbling. He says we've been "waiting a very long time" for this. What? A couple weeks?

5. "We need more welders and less philosophers." — Marco Rubio.

6. "I've done it twice. I'll do it thrice." — Kasich.

7. Oh! Sorry. I fell asleep. Is anyone watching?

8. "Paint in bold colors, not pale pastels." — Ted Cruz.

9. "In the 2 hours of this debate, 5 people have died..." of boredom? (Ben Carson.)

10. "It was a very riveting debate," claims Neil Cavuto, ludicrously.

"Seething GOP candidates escalate their CNBC grievances."

"The Republican presidential candidates are not letting up on CNBC," says that other cable network, CNN.

"We thought CNBC did a horrendous job and a disservice, and we agree with the RNC that they should be ashamed of themselves," Sergio Gor, a spokesman for Senator Rand Paul, told CNNMoney early Thursday morning...

Senator Ted Cruz accused the moderators of trying to instigate a cage match. Donald Trump slammed the "ridiculous questions," and Christie grew visibly irate at the moderators' decision to discuss fantasy football instead of other issues.

"Wait a second, we have $19 trillion in debt, we have people out of work, we have ISIS and al-Qaeda attacking us and we're talking about fantasy football?" Christie shouted. "Can we stop?"

Linked from Drudge under the headline "Shame of the Nation."

ADDED: "CNBC Debate Moderators, Ranked." (#1 is "Fake Louis CK," AKA Jim Cramer.)

Did you hear Ted Cruz enthuse about marijuana?

In last night's debate, Cruz said he might not be the guy you'd pick "to grab a beer with," though he'd be good at driving you home safely. Later, giving Cruz a few more seconds for something, the moderator Carl Quinanilla wove in the beer reference — "Before we go to break, we're clearly not having that beer you mentioned..." — and Cruz said, "Then I'll buy you a tequila... Or, even some famous Colorado brownies."

What is Ted Cruz's position on marijuana anyway?

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland [Feb. 26, 2015], Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) endorsed marijuana federalism during an exchange with Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity. "Look," Cruz said. "I actually think this is a great embodiment of what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called 'the laboratories of democracy.' If the citizens of Colorado decide they want to go down that road, that's their prerogative. I personally don't agree with it, but that's their right."

But, about a year before that, at a Texas Public Policy Foundation conference, Cruz had criticized Obama for announcing that his administration wouldn't prosecute certain crimes. His criticism seemed to be mostly about not enforcing the laws that remain on the books:

You can go to Congress. You can get a conversation. You could get Democrats and Republicans who would say, "We ought to change our drug policy in some way," and you could have a real conversation. You could have hearings. You could look at the problem. You could discuss commonsense changes that maybe should happen or shouldn't happen. This president didn't do that. He just said, "The laws say one thing"—and mind you, these are criminal laws; these are laws that say if you do X, Y, and Z, you will go to prison. The president announced, "No, you won't."

That's not inconsistent with saying the states can serve as laboratories, experimenting with different approaches to decriminalizing and regulating marijuana. I do see a problem with saying that citizens of a state, like Colorado, if they want to do this kind of policy experiment, have the "prerogative." A "prerogative" is "A prior, exclusive, or peculiar right or privilege." (OED definition.)

The federal law is the supreme law. Even though the President may decide to refrain from enforcing it, he's the one with the prerogative. It's a word used to refer to the power of kings. It speaks of priority. The states do not have that as long as the Controlled Substances Act outlaws marijuana. They're proceeding at the forbearance of the federal government.

Now, Cruz might be saying that, as President, he too would forbear, but would he work to change the federal law so that we can overcome the disorder of having the people in some of the states deeply involved in the commission of federal crimes?

ADDED: "Sanders proposes nixing marijuana from federal list of dangerous drugs."

Live-blogging the big GOP debate.

1. Watch along with me. Comment. I'll just be expanding this numbered list of insights. What do we expect? Fireworks? Boredom? Somebody — Kasich?? — making a showy play for attention?

2. My son John is live-blogging too. I recommend that.

3. These CNBC commentators are horrible. Do they even know they're on television? Talking over each other, desperate, contentless. Ugh! They talk like they're drunk.

4. Biggest weakness? Kasich leads off by not answering the question at all, forthrightly refusing. Huckabee denies having weakness, or... he plays by the rules. Jeb says he's impatient. Rubio says he's not sure it's a weakness, but he's optimistic. Trump says he's "too trusting" and if people let him down, he never forgives. Carson says his weakness is not seeing himself in the position of President (until people convinced him). Fiorina says she was told she doesn't smile enough (and she smiles). Cruz says his biggest weakness is he's passionate, he's a fighter, and he's not the guy you want to have a beer with, but he's the one to drive you home. Christie points out the weaknesses of the Democrats. And Rand Paul complains about the budget deal, and he's beginning tomorrow to filibuster it.

5. Trump is asked if his campaign is a cartoon, and he says that's not a very nice question.

6. Carly wants the tax code reduced to 3 pages (from 73,000). The moderators are interrupting and arguing way too much.

7. Big cheer for Rubio's criticism of the Sun Sentinel for being biased in favor of Democrats. Jeb gets on Rubio for missing Senate votes, and Rubio catches him for hypocrisy.

8. Cruz launches into a criticism of the questions the moderators have asked so far. It's a vivid indictment and it gets a big cheer. This interchange ends in near chaos. Cruz really tried to intimidate the moderators.

9. This debate is so stressful and ugly. The moderators are so disrespectful and the candidates are all yelling. Almost all. Carson will never yell.

10. The audience (at the University of Colorado in Boulder) showed tremendous support for Ben Carson. It cheered wildly when he attacked the questioners for criticizing his "vetting process" because he didn't prevent a webpage from using a photograph of him.

11. Trump goes on about those terrible super PACs. And Rubio says: "The Democrats have the greatest super PAC. It's called the mainstream media." That gets a big cheer from the audience.

12. Subsidies are "a bunch of crap," says Carson.

13. Christie is highly critical of the moderators: "Even in New Jersey, what you're doing is rude."

14. Rand Paul wants "a government so small you can barely see it."

15. "In your heart of hearts, you can't wait to hear a debate between Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina," says Carly Fiorina.

16. Ben Carson thanks the audience for being so attentive.

17. Trump will make good deals for America because he made the deal that got the debate reduced from 3 hours to 2.

18. Who did best? Maybe Christie. Maybe Cruz.

19. Did anyone even mention Ronald Reagan tonight? What happened? That was weird. 

What George W. Bush said about Ted Cruz: "I just don’t like the guy."

As reported by those who were there at a meeting of about 100 donors.

“The tenor of what he said about the other candidates was really pretty pleasant,” another donor said. “Until he got to Cruz.”

Oh, he's just trying to help his brother and a standard way to diminish Cruz is to nudge people to think of him as unelectable because he's unlikable. Why that's the standard thing for him — as with Hillary — must have something to do with the way he strikes some people, something about the face, the voice. It's on an animal level. Inexplicable. George Bush was just playing on that, the little rascal.

Jeb follows Trump on Twitter but Trump doesn't follow Jeb.

AP took the trouble to analyze who candidates follow on Twitter and whether they follow each other. 

But what does it mean? How does a candidate decide whom to follow when it's public information? It can't really be that these are the people whose tweets the candidate wants to read. These are just the people the candidate's people want to link to her or him:

Until a few weeks ago, Clinton almost exclusively followed campaign-related accounts and staff. Since then, she's expanded her follow list and added several new celebrities.

Hillary doesn't follow her rivals. She doesn't follow reporters or media accounts, probably, I'm guessing, because she doesn't want to reveal favorites. Why follow celebrities? Because they give money and/or because they make her seem fun? Katy Perry... Mariah Carey... Marc Anthony...

Trump and Hillary have the most followers (almost the same number, 4.3 million). Trump follows people connected to his business dealings, but also some celebrities — Steven Tyler... Magic Johnson...

Who follows the most people? Ted Cruz! He follows 13,840... so you know he's not reading the feed

Last account followed: Lauren Beieler (@laurenbeeliner), whose profile reads, "I heart Jesus. Plain and simple. and i like cheese. A lot."

Whom he follows: Lots and lots of people who have one or more of the following as a profile or background photo: an American flag, a Confederate flag, a Don't Tread on Me Flag or a bald eagle.

Whom he doesn't follow: Nonconservatives, except President Barack Obama — a rare exception.

Notables: Old Southern Moonshine Revival (@OSMRmusic), Classic Rock Lyrics (@RockWsdm)

I don't know. Ted's a genius — maybe he does read it all. His spokesman says he "does follow Twitter virtually all day long between events."

You know that man that you hate? You look more like him every day. ~ Janes Addiction, Idiots Rule

— Classic Rock Lyrics (@RockWsdm) October 5, 2015