RUSH: Last night in this debate… You know, I thought Ted Cruz was outstanding last night. Ted Cruz speaks like a traditional powerful, well-versed proud — unabashedly proud — conservative. He is an articulate representative of conservatism and the conservative movement, and he is a happy warrior. He loves doing what he’s doing. He loves mixing it up. He loves getting in there. And he is relishing this opportunity to put on display what he believes and what millions of the rest of us believe.
I thought Cruz looked really good last night. He might have even damaged Marco Rubio a little bit. Rand Paul was attacking everybody under the sun, trying to save his candidacy. But I think Trump, in the midst of all this… You know, Trump did what I thought he would do: He basically shut up. He was… Well, he answered questions when he was asked to. It was not ’til late in the game when he was goaded by Jeb Bush’s attempts here to get back in the game, that Trump became Trump. But I think Trump served himself very well last night.
He’s basically… Every question… When ISIS came up, when the NSA came up, when beating whoever our enemies are in war, however we do it, Trump’s basic message was, “You know, guys, don’t try to hang me up on the niceties and the details of all of this. We need to kick these guys’ butts all over this planet. We need to kill the terrorists; we need to enlist the right people to do it. Screw you and your details! I’m not here to get caught up in details. I’m a big picture guy. I want to kill the bad guys, and you want to sit here tonight tell me why I can’t here, and why I can’t there, and why we can’t over here.
“I want to beat the bad guys. I want America great again.” Cruz, the same thing. The PC crowd and the moderators say: Well, you can’t do that! There are innocent children and civilians and so forth. “I’m tired of hearing why we can’t do things. There are things that we’re gonna have to do, and I want to go do ’em, and don’t bog me down with these little details here. Big picture.” I think it’s effective. So Cruz and Trump last night, to me, were the winners. But Rubio, I think his fans on margin and on balance probably would be happy with his performance last night.