Who do you think did the best at the NH Union Forum?

[PJ]

I wasn't able to watch the debate live unfortunately, but I just finished it. General thoughts:

• Bush: Not very exciting. Usual neocon drivel plus generic conservatism on domestic policy. His Jeb Swag Store comment was painfully awkward, and I'm not sure tying himself to Bush Sr. more was the best idea.
• Walker: He evidently prepared, and his performance was surprisingly good. The format of the forum was advantageous to him; he wasn't challenged on any of his ideas, and instead, the extremely biased moderator and the announcer circle jerked about how he turned Wisconsin into a conservative wet dream paradise. The fact that he used his utterly meaningless eagle scout anecdote for a second time on global warming just proves that his points are pretty shallow, and if challenged, he'll be steamrolled. I'm also slightly pissed off at his disingenuous portrayal of right-to-work as "freedom." Props to the moderator for asking him if he was 'anti-human' though (lol).
• Carson: He is milking Obamacare like crazy. Even at the GOP debate forum (excuse me), the ACA was only brought up by ~half of the candidates, yet he is treating it like his pet issue. Calling out the "War on Women" was also bizarre. His comment about not needing to be a lawyer or judge to be a SCOTUS justice is a testament to how terrible populism can be. Stylistically, he fumbled and talked very slowly, which isn't a good sign for the upcoming debate.
• Cruz: Did fairly well. I have to wonder if voters saw through his rambling about the Washington Cartel despite literally video chatting from Washington. Hopefully Trump will tear him a new one on this on Thursday.
• Rubio: About the most uncharismatic speaker ever. He's only going downhill from here.
• Paul: Say what you want about him, but his politics is genuinely the most interesting; far more so than SLASH TAXES REPEAL OBAMACARE FAMILY VALUES etc. I appreciate him bringing the issues of privacy and criminal justice reform. He's incredibly naïve if he thinks this is going to help him with African Americans though. And his attempt to straddle the conservative-libertarian border has become an utter failure, and choosing to label himself as a constitutional conservative probably pissed off a lot of libertarians.
• Christie: Eh. He didn't come off as a RINO or like he was trying too hard. With Trump out of the room, he wasn't threatened as the straight talker, but he could've been better.
  
• Kasich: Honestly, he has an awkward presence that is anything but presidential. However, when he speaks, he sounds relatively competent. He solidly staked out his position as the RINO of the debate, and the fact that he barely even tried to utilize traditional Republican rhetoric means he won't have that much momentum.
• Perry: Literally reminded me of an over-excited child. He was hilariously enthusiastic and annoyingly nationalistic, but that's probably going to resound with primary voters.
• Jindal: His voice sounds a lot like Kermit the frog tbh. Also talked about Israel too much. Was remarkably unremarkable otherwise.
• Santorum: Compared gay marriage to slavery, HP. Regarding women on currency, the moderator probably thought that Santorum is enough of a reactionary to be opposed to it, but it was a sloppy question and Santorum's answer was just as sloppy and embarrassing. His focus on electability and muh blue state was pretty ironic.
• Fiorina: Was certainly memorable, for better or worse. Her obsession with the term status quo was amusing, as was her out-of-left-field pornography comment. I'm getting somewhat annoyed with her insistence that she's not part of the "political class" and simultaneously trying to prove that she is in with all world leaders. I'm somewhat disappointed that she didn't talk about women's issues (outside of her terrible views on PP), especially the missed opportunity to criticize the personality/biographical questions directed at her while all the men got political platform questions.
• Graham: Pulled out all the stops; it's pretty obvious he wants to be in the debate. He really only talked about foreign policy, but he came across as funny with some of his comments, and empathetic as well in his more emotional speech.
• Pataki: lol no one gives a sh**t. Only noteworthy comment was "working with Democrats to repeal Obamacare." The comment exemplifies some of the worst aspects of politics: fetishization of bipartisanship and obsession with repealing Obamacare, as well as not being grounded in reality.

Candidates not attending the debate:

• Trump: Was smart not to show up. The forum format as opposed to a debate format meant that Trump wouldn't have been able to show off his greatest asset: ability to attack the other candidates.
• Huckabee: Why didn't he attend? Could've used it to build up name recognition. He's insufferable though, so no loss.
• Gilmore: lol

tl;dr Graham did the best.