Can the GOP field out-psycho Trump tonight? We're about to find out

If you haven’t heard that there’s another “game-changing” Republican debate tonight, you’ve either been in a coma or have sworn off cable news for the holidays. It’s all they were able to talk about yesterday. Sitting outside Uncle Sheldon Adelson’s Venetian hotel, lacquered hair whipping in the cold Las Vegas winter wind, every talking head in the land was on hand to predict, lay odds, and prophesize what was going to happen today. It’s a very good thing that absolutely nothing else happened in the world yesterday.

With all that prognosticating going on, some obvious themes emerged. First and foremost, according to these pundits, the entire country is in a full-fledged panic over the violence that’s tearing our society apart. They are not referring to the daily bloodletting we face day in and day out from uncontrolled firearms killing people by the tens of thousands, of course. That’s just the natural price citizens pay for someone else’s freedom to carry lethal weapons. No, according to these commentators, Americans are hysterical over the extremely remote possibility that the bullet that might kill them could come from a gun fired by a Muslim. Evidently, the unique awfulness of that possibility has the whole country hysterical with fear.

So tonight’s debate is now advertised as a wing-nut schtick measuring contest for which warmongering demagogue can be the most bellicose. The bar has been set rather high, as you know, with Donald Trump recently proposing torture, mass deportation of any foreigners he thinks are a threat, and banning all Muslims from entry to the US. The rest of the pack is going to have to really use their imaginations to beat that.

Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson and Rick Santorum may have gotten some ideas from their attendance at the National Security Action Summit held yesterday in Las Vegas which was sponsored by none other than Donald Trump’s Islamophobic pollster and adviser, Frank Gaffney. The conference attendees were convinced that President Obama is a secret Muslim running the country on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. There’s no word on whether the three presidential hopefuls agree, but they should be reminded that Trump was way out ahead on that one too going back to 2012 when he anointed himself as King of the Birthers.

Chris Christie is out with a blistering web ad criticizing President Obama for “giving away the store” to the Iranians and claiming it was terribly negotiated. He says he would have walked away from the table. This might be a way to establish his foreign policy belligerent bona fides but again, Trump got there first, saying it was negotiated by “stupid, incompetent people. There is something wrong with them.” In fact, Trump appeared with Ted Cruz at a Stop the Iran Deal rally at the Capitol last summer where Cruz laid down the gauntlet by calling President Obama “the leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism.” Christie’s little web ad is a baby slap by comparison. He’s going to have to reach deeper into his bag of nasty (and that bag is well stocked) to compete with this one.

Alleged establishment frontrunner Marco Rubio started running an ad in New Hampshire this week and he sounds downright depressed. It’s him looking in the camera saying:

“This election is about the essence of America. About all of us who feel out of place in our own country. A government incredibly out of touch and millions with traditional values branded bigots and haters. This is about wages growing slower than the cost of living. A generation drowning in debt, and a president humiliated by Putin, Iran, and Islamic jihadists.

“I’m Marco Rubio. I approve this message because this is about the greatest country in the world and acting like it.”

It’s hard to know what he’s trying to achieve there other than driving people to even deeper despair. But you’ll notice that he’s also taking the line that the president has been “humiliated” by Putin, Iran and Jihadists. It would be interesting to hear him explain what he means by that. One assumes the Iran comment is about the nuclear non-proliferation deal which he, like all the others on the stage, are against. The humiliation by “jihadis” probably refers to San Bernardino, and as for Putin, well … who knows? The right has formed an affection for Putin whom they see as a much more manly leader they could really get behind if he weren’t such a foreigner and a commie and all. But again, Trump’s already been there on all three. Rubio can try to be tough but The Donald’s Muslim bashing is unparalleled and he’s on record calling Putin a “thug and a gangster” he could get along with.

We can probably dispense with Bush who will try to sound angry but will come off as a bespectacled muppet. Rand Paul may make a point or two about the inefficacy of the Patriot Act before he once again declares that we should close all of our borders to half the world’s population. Kasich will say Trump is crazy (and Frank Luntz’s focus group will hate him more than anyone else on the stage).

That leaves Senator Ted Cruz, the man of the hour...