AP Photo/Mark J. TerrillAside from The Economy, there was a specific plot thread expected to run through tonight's third Republican primary debate.
The CNBC-hosted debate, subtitled (really!) as Your Money, Your Vote, marked the first meeting of the minds ahead of which Donald Trump was not dominating all of the polls, (those things cable news reports on endlessly and which late-night talk show hosts keep referring to when they're about to tell a joke about Lincoln Chafee).
Instead, Dr. Ben Carson first was said to be leading Trump in Iowa, site of the perennially important caucus on Feb. 1, and then a CBS News/New York Times poll released yesterday shows the retired soft-spoken neurosurgeon leading the outspoken businessman nationally.
It not regular gun control, then perhaps the candidates behind the podiums tonight at the University of Colorado, Boulder, are in favor of proverbial-gun control, because the expectation was that shots would be fired. By Trump, at Carson, in an attempt to resume his dominant position in the standings.
But the real question was, would Carson fire back? Does the relentlessly mellow candidate, who like Trump has never held public office, have the stomach for the sort of low blows enjoyed by his rival?
Well, Carson promised early on that he would not be "engaging in awful things about my compatriots here"—and Trump, whose wife Melania and three grown children were all sitting in the audience, actually started off jabbing at Gov. John Kasich, noting that he was down on the far left podium "for a reason."
"This was a man who was a managing general partner at Lehman Brothers when it went down the tubes and almost took every one of us with it, including Ben and myself," Trump needled the Ohio governor, casting himself and Carson on the same side.
And when the bile rose, it didn't come from Trump or Carson.
It came bubbling out of Sen. Ted Cruz, who answered a question from moderator Carlos Quintanilla about the debt limit by blasting Quintanilla and fellow moderators Becky Quick and John Harwood for asking rude, un-serious questions (Trump had also raised the point with Harwood, calling a question about his tax plan "not a very nicely asked question") and then mocked CNN for its "fawning" questions during the Democratic debate a couple weeks ago.
"This is not a cage match and you look at the questions: 'Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don't you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?' How about talking about the substantive issues people care about?" the Texas senator fumed.
"Does this count? Do we get credit for this one?" an amused-sounding Quintanilla fired back, referring to the perfectly real question he had asked about the debt ceiling.
"I'm not finished," Cruz insisted. "The contrast with the Democratic debate, where every fawning question from the media was, 'Which of you is more handsome and wise?'"
After a few coughs, he continued, "Let me be clear. The men and women on this stage have more ideas, more experience, more common sense than any participant in the Democratic debate...And nobody watching at home believes that any of the moderators has any intention of voting in a Republican primary."
So, Cruz basically called out the whole cable news-hosted debate system (presumably minus Fox News?) as being biased in the other side's favor.
And yet, eight more GOP debates to go!
"I just want the record to reflect, I asked you about the debt limit and I got no answer," Quintanilla shrugged off the attack as they moved on down the line.
The next time he questioned Cruz, though, the exchange was a lot more civil, albeit still off-topic.
"We're clearly not having that beer you mentioned," the moderator cracked and Cruz, who earlier had said he "may not be that guy" you want to have a beer with, cheerfully offered, "I'll buy you a tequila—or even some famous Colorado brownies."
Recreational marijuana, of course, being legal in Colorado.
Judging by the Twitterverse's response, Cruz may have found the key to gaining bipartisan support:
And regarding other issues...
Mike Huckabee also, in refusing to answer a question about whether he viewed Trump as a moral authority, admitted that he was wearing a Trump-brand tie tonight.
When Donald Trump acknowledged having a permit to carry a gun in New York, saying, "I do carry on occasion, sometimes a lot, but I like to be unpredictable"...
Once open season on the Democrats and the liberal media that aid and abet them was officially declared, Sen. Marco Rubio accused the "American mainstream media" of helping Hillary Clinton along by responding favorably to her performance during the 11 hours she spent testifying before Congress' special Benghazi committee last week.
"The Republican party's blessed to have 11 good candidates—er, 10 good candidates. The Democrats can't even come up with one," the Florida senator (who needed a recount, go figure) said later in the evening, adding to the Us vs. Them mentality that won the night.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also thrashed the moderators for asking about whether Fantasy Football should be legal (in terms of it being an economy-booster), saying there were more important things to talk about. Then when asked about his plan of attack regarding climate change (he believes it's real), he too felt he was being disrespected.
"Do you want to answer or do you want me to answer? I've got to tell you the truth, even in New Jersey what you're doing is called rude," he challenged Harwood.
Ben Carson later thanked his fellow candidates for not "falling for the traps," and Trump concluded with a story about how he "called Ben" and they both agreed to refuse to attend this debate if CNBC insisted on making it any longer than the two hours it turned out to be.
"In about two minutes I renegotiated it down to two hours, so we could get the hell out of here," he noted. "Not bad. And I'll do that with the country. We will make America great again."
You'd almost think that someone wants to be somebody's running mate.
"Just for the record, the debate was always going to be two hours," countered Harwood.
"That's not right, that is absolutely not right," Trump objected.