Three Hours in Simi Valley

English: Carly Fiorina Português: A empresária Carly Fiorina em São Paulo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The second Republican presidential debate, held this time at the Ronald Reagan Library in California, was three hours of watching 11 White House wannabees struggling to explain to a CNN audience why they would want to follow in The Gipper's footsteps.  They all stood in front of the Air Force One that Reagan used during his term in office, making it look like this was taking place in an airplane hangar.

Donald Trump, who has been the GOP front-runner for the last few weeks, continued to mug for the cameras and make brash statements.  That's a given.  What's different this time was that the ten other candidates took potshots at Trump and his limitations on such issues as foreign policy and immigration reform, which may have caused him to lay back for long stretches of time.

The other guys--Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, etc.--did their best to attack Trump and to make their own points.  Quite frankly, they had to.  With the exception of Dr. Ben Carson, none of them had poll ratings beyond the single digits.  Only Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, made the most of her promotion from the kids' table at the last debate.  Her icy response to Trump's "that face" reference and what she would do once in office spoke volumes about her candidacy, if you don't count Trump's (mostly true) references to Fiorina's nearly running HP into the ground.

Jeb! Bush tried hard to distance himself from the policies of the previous members of his family who once ran the country.  But mentioning that George W. had "kept us safe" when it was obvious that he did not, admitting to smoking marijuana many years ago, and coaxing Trump to apologize to his wife for including her in the immigration debate was not exactly becoming.  Everyone knows that Trump never apologizes.

In three hours on CNN and Salem Radio (which the network frequently invoked whenever conservative talk host Hugh Hewitt asked a question), moderator Jake Tapper tried to get a word in as the candidates constantly interrupted and talked over each other while discussing re-arming the military and de-funding Planned Parenthood over allegedly doctored videos.  This is what happens when you have eleven people on the same stage telling the world how they would run the country.  It turns into verbal Wrestlemania.

If Reagan were alive to see this, he would have stood there and shook his head, saying "there you go again".  Then he would have taken a nap.  That's more than any of us would have done.