If Trump were there it wouldn't have been the same debate where we can get a decent feel for some of the other candidates. Anywhere Trump is, he commands attention. I didn't want everything to be about Trump, I want to see the democratic process play out. Politics has a lot of risks/rewards tied to it I don't think there were enough positives at this early stage in the game for Trump to jump into the debate. When the field has been whittled down then it would be good to see him on stage.
From an optics standpoint, I believe that aggressively attacking Trump last night wasn't a good move; this can be seen in the crowd's reaction when they'd boo some of the attacks. Strangely enough, even though a lot of people hate Trump, some of them have empathy for him because they know what he's been through. Hillary almost stole 2016 and Biden did steal 2020 while the whole time, both of these people and their party were making claims that Trump was doing the nefarious things they were actually doing. It's madness.
I can't stand it when the candidates talk beyond their time and when candidates start talking over one another. I'm surprised, but one of the worst offenders (I felt), was Mike Pence. He came across way too hard in my opinion. To be honest, I was surprised when he decided to run. I liked him as VP, I just don't see him as president.
My top two picks for the best performances during the debate are Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramasamy. I've been a fan of Nikki's for years because we had a home in South Carolina for decades. She is not a fake politician. She's the real deal. She's transparent. She's bold. She's intelligent; and, she's extremely well liked in and outside of politics. She made us look great on the world stage. How do you think we look now?
Vivek is a phenom at anything he does. I listened to his Val Victorian speech when he was in high school, and he sounded the same back then as he does now. My only big concern with Vivek is some of his foreign policy ideas which I agree with some, but they are easier said than done. Vivek is more of an isolationist like me in that I prefer it be a critical situation involving our national security, before jumping into wars whether fighting them or helping to fund them.
By the way, when it comes to Ukraine, my concern is Russia making the move in the first place. They want something so they take it. My belief in supporting Ukraine at this time is to ensure Russia doesn't get a strong foothold right next to Poland. The G8 would never be stable as Russia would continue to rattle their sabers and Poland would be on edge 24/7.
From what I could tell, Vivek was attacked more last night than even President Trump. Nikki Haley was sure lighting him up; but the thing is, I've watched enough of these debates to know that if you can figure out who is being attacked the most, then regardless of the polls, you have an idea as to who the actual candidates are concerned about, and it was easy to see that they're very worried about Vivek.