The next Morning Jolt will be Tuesday, January 19. Happy Martin Luther King day. Ted Cruz Is the Guy Who Knows to Cut the Blue Wire Come on, Fox Business Channel. You can't let these debates drag on to 11:30 Eastern -- and keep an issue like immigration out of the tail end of prime time. This debate ran hot and cold -- some fiery, fascinating, revealing exchanges among the leading candidates, interrupted by long stretches of the underdogs trying to get attention, and generally failing, by offering reheated servings of their offerings in previous debates. The first headline of the night came with Ted Cruz's methodical dismantling of Trump's "he's Canadian/he's ineligible" argument. With the cool precision of a bomb-squad technician, Cruz made Donald Trump look shifty and dishonest in his accusation, and gleefully pointed out that if the standard for being a natural-born citizen requires two American citizen parents -- has anyone seriously argued for that? -- then Cruz, Rubio, Jindal, and Trump himself would be ineligible. Ted Cruz does his homework, knows all the arguments backwards and forwards, and -- gah, it kills me to write this! -- unflappably executes his playbook with a methodical, Belichick-like precision, adjusting for whatever the defense throws at him. 
No, it's not hard to praise Cruz. It's the other half of that sentence. Cruz fans like to boast their man would mop the floor with Hillary Clinton in a debate, and tonight, that boast seemed more credible. At the risk of sounding like Mel Kiper Jr., tonight Cruz demonstrated great anticipation and quickness. 
"I like Cruz's physicality, great motor, tremendous upside . . ." But . . . in one of the great unexpected twists of the night, Trump came back against Cruz on the "New York values" argument. Out of all the problems with Trump, it's rather foolish to use geography against him, and while invoking 9/11 could seem maudlin on clumsier hands, when the loud, bombastic Trump spoke more softly and from the heart about his home city, it struck just the right note. Trump had a pretty good night, justifying his anger over the state of the country. His plan for tariffs on Chinese goods might be economic suicide, but I'll bet to the ears of laymen who are instinctively distrustful of China it sounded like a reasonable form of retaliation.
Everybody's tough on Chinese imports until the get to the cash register. Marco Rubio had another good night, a little caffeinated at the beginning, but hitting his points and playing to his strengths. A lot of people liked Rubio's exchange with Cruz on immigration, countering that Cruz flip-flops and changes his position. (Why did this topic get discussed after 11 p.m. Eastern?) In the end, Rubio is going to be perceived as the more pro-immigration candidate and Cruz the more anti-immigration one. Can "you're a flip-flopper" sufficiently deflect attacks on a position that is fundamentally unpopular among the GOP grassroots right now? Christie is still a natural on television, but he showed some irritating slipperiness. He shouted, "We're gonna kick your rear end out of the White House!" . . . to a president who's term-limited. (Where was this intense desire to evict Obama in, say, October 2012, when Christie was praising Obama's work in the hurricane response?) Christie also said he had never donated to Planned Parenthood, and either he's lying now or he was lying back in 1994 when he said he did make personal donations to the group. From Bob Ingle's Chris Christie: The Inside Story of His Rise to Power, published in 2012: 
We can argue about how much donations from the early 1990s should count against a candidate running for president in 2016. But don't lie about it, man. (See below for another egregious case of this.) Jeb Bush had some better moments tonight, including making some good points about how Trump's keep-all-the-Muslims-out plan will alienate Muslim allies and people whose help we need in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaeda and other jihadists. It's hard to see how anything that happened tonight really changes his standing, though. Ben Carson . . . just hasn't done the homework on the two biggest topics in the debate, national security and economics. Too often, he relied on non-answers like, "What we need to do is get a group of experts together . . ." He's a nice, bright man, who really seemed to need a question on stereotactic craniotomy to get rolling. His opening joke was, "I'm very happy to get a question this early on. I was going to ask you to wake me up when that time came." At first I thought he was griping that he was being ignored, but now I realize that must have been an attempt to laugh at his own reputation for a sleepy demeanor. 
"I could win this debate with my eyes closed. Don't believe me? Just watch." John Kasich remains a really annoying, preachy, malfunctioning automaton who serves as the natural bathroom break opportunity for those committed to watching the whole debate. Man, Does Christie Have Amnesia or What? Oh, come on, Governor Christie. Last night he said, "Let's set the facts straight. First of all, I didn't support Sonia Sotomayor." Read the following statement from him and see if you think his record is being misconstrued: "After watching and listening to Judge Sotomayor's performance at the confirmation hearings this week, I am confident that she is qualified for the position of associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court," said Christie, a former federal prosecutor, according to Politicker New Jersey. "Elections have consequences. One of those consequences are judicial appointments. While Judge Sotomayor would not have been my choice, President Obama has used his opportunity to fill a seat on the Supreme Court by choosing a nominee who has more than proven her capability, competence and ability." He continued: "I support her appointment to the Supreme Court and urge the Senate to keep politics out of the process and confirm her nomination. Qualified appointees should be confirmed and deserve bipartisan support. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito deserved that support based on their work as Circuit Court Judges. So does Judge Sotomayor. As a result, I support her confirmation. This is a historic moment and her inspiring success story should not only make the Latino community proud, but all Americans." BREAKING: JEB BUSH PICKS UP ANOTHER VOTE IN SOUTH CAROLINA Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is endorsing Jeb Bush this morning. ADDENDA: This week's pop-culture podcast: What you could have done with those Powerball winnings, remembering David Bowie, typecast actresses, losing your football franchise, and the consequences of Making a Murderer . . . | 
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