GOP Presidential Debate Official Thread.

This is the 2nd Republican debate, so hopefully it is twice the fun. It will be hosted by CNN and it starts at 8:00pm ET.

Some Live Tweet stuff, we are gonna OT the hell out of this debate here.

Anyways, share your thoughts, jokes etc. etc.

These are the preliminary results from the two OT polls for the GOP and Democratic presidential primaries (and yes, I have too much time in my hand :P).

I was wondering where those poll numbers were coming from, LOL.

The beginning of this debate has been a disgrace. I expected better from you Jake Tapper, shame on you.

Side point, Walker taking it hard to Trump.

These guys sound awesome...

Defund planned parenthood. Allow elected officials to exercise religious beliefs in the course of doing their job....

Holy fucking shit.

None of this is a surprise, though. This is the red meat they throw out to the base and then ignore once the establishment candidate wins the primary.

Donald Trump is acting like the class clown...

Oh and now he's hitting on Carly Fiorina.

Fiorina is crushing it. Boom!

the majority of these questions are a disgrace and show what a fraudulent network cnn is.

question 1: Do you think trump should have access to nuclear codes?

come on

He has been acting like a clown all along.

Wait, so now building a wall on the southern border is too expensive? That's been a staple of Republican stances for years.

There are different estimates, aside from the fact that if you deemed a project important enough you can always prioritize it over other items.

I'm not sure what you're implying with this statement. FWIW, I'm shocked that Bush came out against the wall. That's going to deepen the contrast between Bush and Trump - between Bush and the conservative base.

Oh jeez, bringing up the fair tax proposal?

And now the flat tax proposed as an analogy to tithing, Fun!

Grrrrrrrr, I want Carly Fiorina to choke me.

Oh look, real emotion from Jeb Bush.

lol they are all boneheads

It's designed to show us how much of nutcases these idiots are. It works.

Better than Fake News.

Who needs reality TV when you've got this?

Also Chris Christie is the eye of Sauron.

Hate to disagree with da' God but I think in the up coming days Jake Tapper's and CNN's performance with be compared unfavorably to Fox News'. It truly has been subpar, specially the first hour.

No control of the banter, never ending backs and forth.

NBC needs to look at what worked and not worked on both debates.

So far I like Fiorina, Kasick, and Christie.

They are the only Republicans I would vote for. The debates are working in favor of Republicans as far as my vote. 6 months ago, I would have staunchly supported Hillary for president. Up in the air now.

I tend to be moderate leaning left. But I did vote for Reagan his 2nd term.

This is where Trump falls off his pedestal, beginning of the descent.

So these guys up on stage so far have said:

-They want to make sure weed stays illegal.

-Ban abortion

-Allow people to refuse homo marriage.

-Christans and Jew values against Muslims. (Religious mumbo jumbo)

"Why can't we win a presendential election?"

Rand is full of it, federal law supersede state law and the law should be changed.

Marihuana should be legal. Change the law. Democrats and Republicans need to think about the next law a president decides it won't enforce, you might not like it.

Ugh add another one,

-Global Warming doesn't matter. Screw that fake shit.

It's almost like you're surprised

Donald Trump is just a buffoon: "we have an autism epidemic".

Carson took him to school.

Margaret

Thatcher

I liked it. Truly the Iron Lady.

• Jeb Bush: I don't trust this guy, his demeanor. He just seems weak, a push over. He didn't improved over his first debate performance (maybe in the 3rd hour when he was more loose). I don't give a **** how much money he has raised.
• Ben Carson: he continues to be his affable self but not much substance whatsoever.
• Chris Christie: Good performance but it just isn't enough to break away. He will hang around.
• Ted Cruz: Better than before, by which a mean less weaselly. He is vying for the Trump vote if Trump fails.
• Carly Fiorina: Outstanding, clearly won the debate. I expect some bump in the polls.
• Mike Huckabee: Whatever dude. But he is right he didn't get much time and (seems to) only get questions about social issues.
• John Kasich: He was good, kept hitting the point that he wants "to unite" us; stayed in message.
• Rand Paul: He was better, but keeps fading. I think he intelligently highlighted his libertarian streak.
• Marco Rubio: Good again, strong VP material.
• Donald Trump: Didn't imploded, but I think his act is wearing thin.
• Scott Walker: Much much better, his campaign has been on the rocks so he need it a good performance badly.

It's finished....I would reiterate that I think the 3 to the far left of Trump were the most presidential.

Fiorina, Kasik, and Christie are my 3.

I'm glad I got to see Fiorina, she was rock solid. Time will tell, but I'm leaning toward her.

Looking forward to seeing the Democratic debate.

Scott Walker was much better tonight, just outside the 3 for me. I like Ben Carson but not presidential.

The Big Winner of the Debate - George W. Bush

The Big Loser - Planned Parenthood

Huckabee came across as the time player. Bush and Carson both said some lines that Trump liked and they got a handshake from him over that, so that was kind of neat.

I think Jeb did better than I expected. Christie was good too. I like when he told Fiorina "you interrupted everybody else, you're not going to interrupt me".

@Master_Live: For the past few months I was thinking that if Rubio didn't get the nomination - or maybe even if he did get the nomination and then lost to Hillary - that he should run for governor in 2018, get some executive experience and then run again in the future. But lately, I've been thinking he'd be a good guy for Secretary of State. I think Carson might be VP. And then maybe Cruz could become Attorney General or Solicitor General or head the White House Office of Legal Counsel for a bit (opening up his Senate seat for Rick Perry), and then eventually go on to become a federal judge.

Be interested in seeing the fallout of the debate and the new poll numbers.

@Aljosa23: The fact she is even being considered a serious candidate is painful and embarrassing. She basically represents everything wrong with corporate America.. Her time as CEO of HP had the company driven into the ground, which she got a giant bonus payout for her performance after she left the position..

So I missed this last night, anything of interest happen?

Fiorina went dominatrix on Trump. Rubio and Christie good. Kasich good (in a general election kind of way). Jeb can't get on track. Rand back stressing what made him an intriguing candidate in the first place. Carson his affable (unsubstantial) self. No one paying attention to Huckabee (except for the Kim Davis thing). Cruz less weaselly (still a weasel). Walker less crappy.

one of these days trump will have to add more substance other than "i'll be great at it"

that and the whole debate seemed to be a "reagan-off"

of that group the only one who really came off as reasonable and pragmatic was kasich ( which means he'll lose horribly )

And the new cover of Time Magazine is:

So I'm hearing rumors that Ricky Santorum supports a raise in the minimum wage? Now that's interesting coming from a GOP candidate with elections season close by but then again Santorum won't get the nomination.

**** it I'm supporting Bernie Sanders. I just want to watch the whole world bern.

Wednesday's GOP debate appears to be the highest-rated event in CNN's history, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings.

The prime time debate averaged a 14.7 household rating, indicating that 1 in 7 American homes with TVs tuned in.

These are NFL-level ratings -- affirming that the Donald Trump fueled Republican debate slate is one of the most popular television shows of the year.

The overnight ratings estimates are subject to adjustments. But the 14.7 rating is likely to translate to roughly 20 million viewers once final viewership figures come out Thursday afternoon.

Fox's GOP debate last month received a 16.0 preliminary rating the next morning. That number later extrapolated to 24 million live viewers. (Another 1.1 million viewers watched via DVRs.)

Fox's debate was two hours long while CNN's was three hours.

From a campaign's perspective, longer might have been better, because it gave candidates more time to talk and argue. It also gave CNN more time for commercial breaks.

But the length may diminish the overall ratings a bit. That's because the ratings are an average of minute-by-minute viewership, so if viewers didn't stay for the whole program, the average will be lower.

Hour-by-hour ratings may illuminate this viewer behavior later in the day.

But even the overnight ratings show that these GOP debates are drawing viewers who never bothered turning on a debate before.

For comparison's sake, CNN's most-watched presidential primary debate before Wednesday was a Democratic debate on January 31, 2008. It had an average of 8.3 million viewers.

CNN's most-watched program program ever was a special "Larry King Live" episode in 1993. The episode featured Al Gore and Ross Perot debating NAFTA and averaged 16.8 million viewers.

Wednesday's debate also set a live-streaming record for the network.

At the midway point of the debate, there were 921,000 concurrent users on CNN's live stream, easily making it the most-watched web stream of a primary debate ever.

He wants to raise it by 50 cents.

yeah...

Seriously, why can't Kasich get the nomination?

Letting those clowns have at it was brilliant.

People love a great freak show.

PROGRESS!!1