2nd GOP Presidential debate

I gave up.
At my age, two hours of three with 11 Republican presidential candidates is enough.

Fair disclosure – given the attacks on Planned Parenthood, the emerging belligerence on foreign policy, the same-old rhetoric on immigration, I don’t see any of them winning my vote.

But on the night:

Huckabee gets the over the cliff prize, ranting that simply requiring the director of a Kentucky government office to do her job amounts to “criminalization of Christianity.”
Hello?

Cruz has apparently decided that the general election is not important, as his entire campaign is now a red meat appeal to the extreme corners of his party – shred the Iran deal first day in office, Planned Parenthood “killing children for their body parts,” etc. 
If the country truly wants his angry, negative, doomsday rhetoric as the White House standard, it might be time to take that long vacation somewhere safe.

Trump seemed weaker, his usual bombast muted and absent any real policy detail, but the moderators and other candidates – at least in my two hours – spent far too much time going over and over again what Trump said about whom and when.
Bluster without content – my two cents. But did he ever get air time.

Fiorina helped her candidacy last night – sharp and on point, excepting a tiresome back and forth with Trump re: their alleged business successes and failures. Christie finally called them out, asking – can we talk about real issues?

Carson – not much to say. If Trump thought Jeb Bush was low energy, Carson’s low, low key barely wandered into pulse territory. Nice, polite, respectful. A President? Not likely.

Rubio apparently scored points in the last hour of the debate but they’d all lost me by then. He's smart on analyzing the main points in the immigration debate but has abandoned the only policy that makes sense.

Bush is still, with Kasich, the only one on stage who wouldn’t throw me into trauma should he win. His takes on issues from the Iran deal to immigration are more nuanced, even though – at crunch time – he also went off against Planned parenthood.

Kasich – still my adult in the room, focusing on issues instead of personalities and offering the quote of the night:
“If I’m watching this at home I’d be inclined to turn it off.” (Three hours is TOO long.....)

I see I'm not mentioning Rand Paul, Scott Walker, or Chris Christie (though he did get off some good lines).
Nothing to say......

---- Adding to this some lines from a NYT editorial re: the debate - on point:

".....Peel back the boasting and insults, the lies and exaggerations common to any presidential campaign. What remains is a collection of assertions so untrue, so bizarre, that they form a vision as surreal as the Ronald Reagan jet looming behind the candidates’ lecterns. 

It felt at times as if the speakers were no longer living in a fact-based world where actions have consequences, programs take money and money has to come from somewhere. Where basic laws — like physics and the Constitution — constrain wishes. Where Congress and the public, allies and enemies, markets and militaries don’t just do what you want them to, just because you say they will."