Image copyright Reuters 
 
 So this is what a Republican debate would have looked like in an alternate universe, where Donald Trump was still a reality show celebrity and a failed steak salesman. 
 
 With a few notable exceptions, all the candidates kept their balance and stayed on their talking points. It's as if the unconventional Trump's absence from the hall made everyone a bit more restrained and, well, political. 
 
 But this was still a debate, and every debate has winners and loser, so here they are. 
 
 Winners 
 
 Jeb Bush 
 
 Image copyright AFP 
 
 Hello there, stranger, where have you been for the last 12 months? The former Florida governor is still not the most skilful debater, but without Trump around to constantly kick proverbial dirt in his eyes, he gave his best performance of the campaign. He practically admitted as much when he sarcastically noted that Trump was "a little teddy bear to me" and they "had such a loving relationship". 
 
 Best moment: When asked about a "culture of hatred" directed toward Muslims, he said: "We're never going to win elections unless we have a broader, unifying message". This was big-tent Bush, the kind of campaign he said he wanted to run but hasn't been able to. 
 
 Biggest stumble: It's perhaps telling that his worst moment was still pretty good. During the debate's biggest conflict, over immigration reform, he stood by his position on giving undocumented migrants a pathway to permanent residency. That probably won't help him with rank-and-file Republicans, but disavowing his previous stance wouldn't have either. 
 
 Chris Christie 
 
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 Since being temporarily relegated to the undercard debate, the New Jersey governor has managed to string together several strong debate performances. He's a winner because, like Bush, he was best able to shine in Trump's absence. His forcefulness, whether talking about Hillary Clinton or national security, comes across in much sharper contrast when the New York billionaire isn't there to steal his thunder. 
 
 Best moment: The immigration portion of the debate was pivotal for many of the candidates, and it was tailor-made for Christie to contrast his executive experience as governor. After Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz struggled to explain their sometimes contradictory records on the issue in the Senate, Christie pounced: "I feel like I need a Washington to English converter" to understand Rubio and Cruz. He added that governors can't hide behind "parliamentary tricks". 
 
 Biggest stumble: Christie was asked about the Bridgegate scandal and, despite it hanging over his head all campaign, he simply doesn't have a convincing answer. His offering, "I knew nothing", is not what you want to hear from a man who brags about being a take-charge leader. 
 
 Donald Trump 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images 
 
 If Trump loses the Iowa caucuses, his decision to skip this debate will likely be labelled a mistake. At least for now, however, it looks like he made it through the evening unscathed. Save for a few gentle jabs, he largely avoided attacks from the debaters and dodged the sharp questions from moderators that bedevilled other candidates. 
 
 Cruz and Rubio faced video clips of their past conflicting statements on immigration reform - and surely Fox had one ready to roll for Trump, as well. Instead, the New Yorker got to hold court at his own rally, carried live by other news networks, and was even joined on stage by fellow candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. 
 
 Treading water 
 
 Marco Rubio 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images 
 
 The Florida senator is never going to have a bad debate - he's just too polished for that. This was Rubio's weakest performance, however. He got bogged down with the immigration question, and his back-and-forth with Cruz on national defence was awkwardly sidetracked when he mentioned he had once accidentally mispronounced Dabiq (the propaganda magazine of the so-called Islamic State group) in Syria as Dubuque, a town in Iowa. 
 
 Best moment: Rubio scored his best line when, after a Cruz joke about leaving the debate if he kept being attacked fell flat, he quipped: "I'm not leaving this stage, no matter what you ask me." 
 
 Biggest stumble: Rubio was damaged the most by, of all people, Bush - the man who so feebly attacked him in an earlier debate. After Rubio tried to explain his past support for immigration reform, Bush went for the kill: "He cut and run because it wasn't popular amongst conservatives, I guess." Bush then contrasted Rubio's dissembling with his own willingness to stick with his principles. If Bush is going down based on his immigration position, he seems eager to pull Rubio into the abyss with him. 
 
 John Kasich 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images 
 
 Kasich didn't have a bad debate, but he was once again largely absent from the evening's biggest moments. As a current governor and former leader in Congress, he has a firm grasp of policy details, and it shows. If he's going to make a move in the next few weeks, however, there are a lot of bodies he'll have to climb over. He seems to have made the decision over the course of the past few debates that, win or lose, he's just not going to do that. 
 
 Best moment: Kasich was once again asked about his support for expanding federal Medicaid coverage for the poor in his state, an issue that is anathema to much of the conservative base. He turned it into a defence of his state's treatment of drug addicts and the mentally ill. "When I study scripture," he said, "I know that people who live in the shadows need to have a chance." 
 
 Biggest stumble: The one time Kasich was really forceful was when he got into a spat with moderators Chris Wallace and Megyn Kelly. After several unsuccessful attempts to keep talking through their efforts to change the topic, he finally relented. "I've always listened to you, Megyn. Go ahead." 
 
 Rand Paul 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images 
 
 The Kentucky senator nearly merits being put in the winning column just because, after missing out on the prime-time debate earlier this month, his poll numbers got him back on the main stage. But, like Kasich, he simply lacked a breakthrough moment for a campaign that desperately needs one. He mixed it up with both Cruz and Rubio at times, but he failed to make any of his attacks stick - and it's unclear who he most needs to take down in order to succeed at this point. 
 
 Best moment: Paul finally had the opportunity to talk about criminal justice reform, an issue near to his heart. "The war on drugs has disproportionately affected our African-American community, and what we need to do is make sure that the war on drugs is equal protection under the law and that we don't unfairly incarcerate another generation of young African-American males," he said. It was a glimpse of the Rand Paul that many thought would flourish this campaign but has largely been absent. 
 
 Biggest stumble: Paul was asked about President Bill Clinton's past infidelities. He said that if a head of corporation had behaved similarly, he would have been fired, never again hired and "shunned in their community". A fact check would likely render that view false. 
 
 Losers 
 
 Ted Cruz 
 
 Image copyright AFP 
 
 The Texas senator is touted as a championship-calibre debater, but he seemed off-balance almost the entire evening. He spent too much time complaining to the moderators about the tenor of their questioning and many of his planned one-liners were clunkers. Expectations were high for Cruz to dominate the proceedings without Trump on the stage, but it almost seemed as though he were lost without the man he's sparred with for the past few weeks. 
 
 Best moment: Cruz is against corn ethanol subsidies, which is a very unpopular position to have when you're vying for a win in the Iowa caucuses. Not surprisingly, he was asked about his stance, and he turned it into a defence of his tax plan. "I don't believe that Washington should be picking winners and losers," he said. "And, I think there should be no mandates, and no subsidies whatsoever." It may lose him votes in Iowa, but after being criticised by Paul earlier in the debate for his preference for political expediency, it was a principled stand. 
 
 Biggest stumble: Cruz complained when he wasn't given a chance to respond after being mentioned in one of Wallace's questions. "You don't get 30 seconds to respond to me," Wallace snapped. "Sir, I know you like to argue about the rules, but we're going to conduct a debate." And so it was that the sharpest burn of the night didn't come from a candidate. 
 
 Ben Carson 
 
 Image copyright AFP 
 
 It's hard to label Ben Carson a loser. At this point, he's a category unto himself. He referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "one-horse country" and seemed surprised when he was asked about immigration. "Oh, great," he said to audience laughter. He ended the debate by reciting the preamble to the US Constitution, but messed up a word. He disappeared for vast stretches, and while in the past he's seemed to rise in the polls despite performances like this, he's now settled toward the bottom of the pack. 
 
 Best moment: "You're not going to hear a lot of polished political speech from me," he said in his opening remarks. Truer words have never been spoken. 
 
 Biggest stumble: Everything after that. ||||| Jeb Bush, who entered Tuesday night’s GOP debate with the most on the line, rose to the occasion and turned in his strongest debate performance to date, but it was Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz who again outshined their rivals. 
 
 While Bush's ability to find his footing on the primetime stage should reassure nervous donors, it’s unlikely to fundamentally change his position in the broader field—a B grade, after all, only brings an F up to a D. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Rubio and Cruz, now viewed as the two strongest candidates, ceded no ground, exploiting a much softer debate format in Milwaukee and again showcasing their mastery of the facts and ease under the bright lights. 
 
 Donald Trump also roared back to his caustic, combative form. But Ben Carson turned in his shakiest performance yet, struggling with a debate that focused more on substantive policy questions and taking up the least amount of speaking time despite his position in the center of the stage. 
 
 The two-hour debate, marked by a smattering of sharp exchanges but fewer fireworks than the three previous showdowns, is unlikely to dramatically alter the race as it now stands—and the status quo may hold through the end of the year, with the next GOP debate 35 days away and the month of December effectively a dead zone for campaign fundraising. 
 
 Many of the spats that generated heat on stage Tuesday night were familiar ones—illustrative of the broader ideological divisions within the GOP. 
 
 The first focused on immigration, with Trump and Cruz on one side opposite John Kasich and Bush, both desperate for air time given their standing behind the current front-runners and eagerly blasting Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. 
 
 "It’s a silly argument. It’s not an adult argument. We all know you can’t pick them up and ship them back across the border,” said Kasich, paving a path for Bush to follow. 
 
 Trump responded by taking a dig at the Ohio governor and his state's economic recovery. "You’re lucky in Ohio that you struck oil," he said. 
 
 As the tussle escalated and Kasich started talking over him, Trump interjected, saying "I don't have to hear from this man." As Kasich looked to cut in again, Trump suggested he "let Jeb speak." 
 
 Bush followed by mockingly thanking Trump for "allowing me to speak at the debate." He also chided Trump for the mass deportation proposal, calling it "impossible." 
 
 “It’s not embracing American values, and it would tear communities apart,” Bush said about Trump’s plan. “And even having this conversation sends a powerful signal. They’re doing high-fives in the Clinton campaign when they hear this … the way you win the presidency is you have practical plans.” 
 
 Cruz followed with a defense of Trump’s position, asserting “it’s not anti-immigrant,” and landing a repeat of his well-received attack on the media. 
 
 “I understand when the mainstream media covers immigration, it often doesn’t see it as an economic issue, but I can tell you for millions of Americans at home watching this, it is a very personal economic issue,” Cruz said. “I would say the politics of it would be very, very, different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande — or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press.” 
 
 Rubio, the author of the failed comprehensive immigration reform package that passed the Senate in 2013 but failed in the House for lack of support from grassroots conservatives, stayed out of the fray. 
 
 Rubio did land his own memorable moment when he tangled with Rand Paul, who criticized his proposals to increase military spending. 
 
 “I know that Rand is a committed isolationist,” Rubio said, dismissively. “I know that the world is a safer and a better place when the United States is the strongest country in the world.” 
 
 "Marco, Marco, how is it conservative to add a trillion-dollar expenditure to the federal government?” Paul shot back. “You cannot be a conservative if you’re going to keep promoting new programs that you’re not going to pay for. I want a strong national defense, but I don’t want us to be bankrupt.” 
 
 “You think defending this nation is expensive," Cruz chimed in. "Try not defending it." 
 
 Bush, desperate to improve on his disastrous performance in last month’s third GOP debate in Boulder, Colo., steadied himself with his response on immigration after showing some edginess early on. 
 
 Bush entered Tuesday night’s fourth GOP debate vowing to stop following the moderators’ rules and dead set on making his voice heard. 
 
 But in a major shift from the first three debates that quickly devolved into freewheeling slugfests, the five candidates who got questions before Bush did at the outset of the two-hour debate in Milwaukee were suddenly playing by the rules. 
 
 When Kasich, despite ranking behind Bush in the national polling, offered a lengthy answer to his first question and then threatened to interject after Cruz’s opening statement, an antsy Bush jumped in. 
 
 "I got about four minutes last debate, I'm gonna get my question,” Bush said. 
 
 “I appreciate it, Jeb,” Kasich shot back. “I’m all for you.” 
 
 Bush got his footing as the debate progressed, attacking Trump for his assertion that the U.S. cannot be the world's policemen. "Donald is wrong on this. He is absolutely wrong on this," Bush said. "We are not going to be the world’s policemen but we sure as hell better be the world’s leader." 
 
 “That’s like a board game. That’s like playing Monopoly or something," said Bush, who seemingly meant to refer to the game Risk, not Monopoly. 
 
 Twelve days after his rehearsed attack on Rubio backfired so spectacularly, Bush opted not to attack or engage Rubio at all. 
 
 Carson, who now sits atop some national polls, struggled on a foreign policy question about how he would combat ISIS in the Middle East. 
 
 “We have to say, how do we make them look like losers? And I think the way to make them look like losers, we have to destroy their caliphate,” Carson said, seemingly arguing for ground forces to remove ISIS from Iraq. 
 
 “Take that from them, take that land from them, we could do that fairly easily,” he said. 
 
 Carson also addressed the recent scrutiny of a number of his anecdotal biographical claims, again criticizing the media for portraying him unfairly. 
 
 “The fact of the matter is, we should vet all candidates,” Carson said early in the debate. “What I do have a problem with is being lied about and putting that out there as truth. I don’t even mind that so much if they do that with everybody … when I look at somebody like Hillary Clinton who sits there and tells her daughter and a government official that no this was a terrorist attack and tells everybody else it was a video, where I come from, they call that a lie. 
 
 “I think that’s very different from somebody misinterpreting when I said I was offered a scholarship to West Point,” he continued. “People who know me know that I’m a honest person.” ||||| Republican presidential candidates sparred over experience, took jabs at their Democratic opponents and even shared a few laughs during CNBC's main debate in Boulder, Colo., on Oct. 28. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) 
 
 Republican presidential candidates sparred over experience, took jabs at their Democratic opponents and even shared a few laughs during CNBC's main debate in Boulder, Colo., on Oct. 28. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) 
 
 The third Republican presidential debate on Wednesday evening ended with a handful of winners – Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz – and one clear loser, former Florida governor Jeb Bush. 
 
 Bush, who was the well-financed front-runner at the beginning of the year, had one good moment in the beginning of the debate, when he attacked Rubio for his record of absences in the Senate. But that moment quickly became a devastating one for Bush, as Rubio responded with a faux-friendly cutdown: “Someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you,” he told Bush. “It’s not.” 
 
 After that, Bush was a minor presence – a night so bad for him that his campaign manager confronted CNBC producers off the stage, angry about Bush’s lack of airtime. 
 
 Rubio, by contrast, used the debate to cast himself as someone who understood middle-class concerns about student debt and income. By taking down Bush, he blunted an entire line of questioning about his withdrawal from the daily work of the Senate. 
 
 [Full coverage: Republican presidential debate] 
 
 During the third GOP debate, candidates got feisty with the CNBC moderators. They took aim at the questions asked, at the "mainstream media" and at the moderators interrupting their answers. (Victoria M. Walker/The Washington Post) 
 
 Cruz and Christie also had strong moments while criticizing the moderators: Cruz attacked their questions as too negative, and Christie criticized them for asking about whether government should regulate the lucrative ‘daily fantasy” sports business. Christie mocked the moderators for focusing on “fantasy football” with so many other problems in the country. 
 
 It was certainly not a good night for the moderators, who were booed on at least two occasions for questions the audience thought were unfair. 
 
 One of the strongest moments for Donald Trump, the billionaire front-runner, came at the very end of the debate, when he said he had teamed up with neurosurgeon Ben Carson to force CNBC to shorten the debate. There, Trump said, was proof of his basic campaign promise: nobody was better than him at getting a good deal. Moderator John Harwood denied Trump’s assertion. 
 
 Earlier, Trump denounced gun-free zones in public places as “target practice for the sickos,” underlining his pro-gun credentials during the third main GOP presidential debate. 
 
 “That’s target practice for the sickos, and the mentally ill. That’s targets. They look around for gun free zones,” Trump said, talking about recent shootings at schools and military installations. “I think gun-free zones are a catastrophe. They are feeding frenzy for sick people.” 
 
 Trump had been uncharacteristically quiet during the first hour and a half of the debate. But he used this moment to talk about his experience with guns, including his permits to carry weapons in New York City. “I like to be unpredictable,” about when he actually carries a gun, Trump said. “Unlike our country, by the way, which is totally predictable.” 
 
 The next question was to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who was asked – as a minister – if Trump had the moral authority to be president. Some in the crowd booed. Huckabee rejected the question: “The last [thing] I need is to give him some more time,” Huckabee said. 
 
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 “Such a nasty question, but thank you governor,” Trump said. 
 
 Christie interjected himself into a discussion about whether the government should regulate the huge, high-earning “daily fantasy” sites that let people win huge amounts of money through the success of sports players. Bush, who got the question, seemed to indicate it should be treated as gambling, and regulated. 
 
 Christie jumped in, apparently incredulous that the question was even being asked: Why would the government, with all of its problems, bother with something like this? 
 
 “Enough on fantasy football! Let people play! Who cares?” he said. Later, Christie continued in his confrontational mood, stopping after Harwood had talked over him. 
 
 “Do you want me to answer, or do you want to answer? Even in New Jersey, what you’re doing is called rude,” Christie said. 
 
 Earlier, Rubio called Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton a liar, and said that the mainstream media had worked to cover up Clinton’s falsehoods about the attacks that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. 
 
 “You know, the Democrats have the ultimate Super PAC, it’s called the mainstream media,” Rubio said. He mentioned an 11-hour hearing about Benghazi on Capitol Hill last week, in which Republicans grilled Clinton about her conduct as secretary of state at the time of the attacks. “It was the week she got exposed as a liar. But she has her Super PAC helping her out, the American mainstream media.” 
 
 That comment came on a night when the media – and CNBC itself – became a punching bag for the GOP candidates. 
 
 An exchange between a CNBC moderator and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson – which began with questions about Carson’s ties to a nutritional-supplement company – ended with the crowd booing the moderator himself. 
 
 The boos seemed to indicate that the crowd believed Carson when he said he had no real relationship with the company, Mannatech, which news reports have said has a history of legal actions and accusations of false claims. When moderator Carl Quintanilla pressed Carson to say if he had made an error in judgment, the crowd itself booed. “See, they know,” Carson said. 
 
 Rubio used a sharp comeback to defuse Bush’s attack on his voting record in the Senate, and turned a question about his personal financial struggles into a chance to empathize with voters’ own money worries. 
 
 “I didn’t inherit any money. My dad was a bartender, my mother was a maid…I know what it’s like to owe that money,” Rubio said, after a moderator asked about his personal debts, including student loans. “I’m not worried about my finances. I’m worried about the finances of everyday Americans.” 
 
 Rubio defended his record of missed votes in the Senate in the third GOP presidential debate, saying he was rebelling against a GOP establishment that wanted to keep him out of the presidential race. 
 
 “That’s exactly what the Republican establishment says too, wait in line. Wait for what?,” he said when asked by a moderator why he was in such a rush to leave his work in the Senate. Rubio, making an argument he’s made several times in recent weeks, said his ambitions for American could not wait on the slow-moving Senate. “The time to act is now. The time to turn the page is now.” 
 
 That brought an attack from Bush – a onetime ally of Rubio’s, now a bitter rival as they battle for the establishment’s support in this race. Bush, a Florida resident, cast himself as a wronged constituent of Rubio’s. 
 
 “I expected that he would do constituent service, which means he shows up to work,” Bush said. “Marco, when you signed up for this, this is a six year term, and you should be showing up to work…Or just resign, and let somebody else take the job.” 
 
 Rubio clearly had been expecting this attack, and responded with a sharp attack on Bush – followed by a pledge that he would not attack people, as Bush just had. 
 
 “Someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you….It’s not,” Rubio said. “I’m not running against Gov. Bush. I’m not running against anyone else on the stage. I’m running for president.” 
 
 Cruz attacked the moderators, for asking too-hard questions of the other candidates. “The men and women on this stage have more ideas, more experience, more common sense than any participant in the Democratic debate,” Cruz said. 
 
 In that attack, Cruz used up the time he’d been allotted to answer a question about the debt ceiling, and why Cruz opposed a bill to raise it. 
 
 When that was pointed out, Cruz offered to answer the question. When moderators didn’t let him, he seemed outraged. “You’re not interested in an answer? You’re not interested in an answer?” 
 
 Earlier, Carson, a new front-runner in the Republican race, faced strong criticism of his tithing-based tax plan, when Kasich called Carson’s plan “fantasy.” 
 
 “You can’t do it with empty promises. You know, these plans would put us trillions of dollars in debt,” Kasich said. “We cannot elect somebody that doesn’t know how to do the job.” 
 
 Even at the moment when Kasich was attacking his rival, Carson, Trump – unable to let a chance to insult pass by -- intervened to attack Kasich for his low poll numbers. “That’s why he’s on the end,” Trump said. 
 
 A few minutes earlier, the third Republican presidential debate had begun like an awkward job interview, with a moderator asking candidates to name their biggest weakness. The result, as in most job interviews, was a group of people who didn’t actually answer the question. 
 
 “Good question,” said Kasich, who then ignored the question to insult his colleagues. “We’re on the verge of picking somebody who could perhaps not do this job.” 
 
 “If I have a weakness, it’s that I try to play by the rules,” said Huckabee. 
 
 “I share an optimism” about the country’s future,” said Rubio. 
 
 “I’m a fighter,” said Cruz. 
 
 The closest thing to a weakness that anyone admitted came from an unlikely source: Trump. “I’m too trusting,” Trump said. “And if they let me down, when they let me down, I never forgive.” 
 
 Earlier on Wednesday, four low-performing Republican candidates faced off in another dinnertime “undercard” debate. The dominant figures in that debate were Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), the jokester; Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, the hard-right conservative; and a large and growing cast of CNBC moderators, who at times seemed loathe to let the actual candidates speak. 
 
 Graham – showing his trademark combination of humor and deadly seriousness – closed out the earlier debate by mocking Donald Trump, and then swinging to an emotional plea that American make him commander in chief. 
 
 Graham (S.C.) joked that he’d heard – or maybe read it on a hat – that somebody wanted to “Make America Great Again.” That was a jab at Trump, who had made the slogan -- and the hats that bear it -- famous this year. Then Graham turned to his own message. 
 
 “America is great. I intend to make America strong again,” he said, pledging to help the middle class, and to back American troops, even as he sent them into a new land war in Syria. 
 
 “They have had our back. God knows, they have had our back. And I intend to have their back…Make me commander in chief.” 
 
 [Transcript: CNBC undercard GOP debate] 
 
 Jindal, formerly known as a wonk-Republican, made an appeal to pugnacious hard-core conservatives and Christian right. In the course of the debate, Jindal derided Democrats as socialists, and Republicans in Washington as weak and too quick to surrender. 
 
 Jindal ended the first debate with an appeal for Americans to think of their country in Christian terms: with faith that a frightening situation could be saved. 
 
 “The idea of America is slipping away. As Christians, we believe that the tomb is empty. As Americans we believe that our best days are ahead of us,” Jindal said, meaning the tomb of Jesus Christ, which Christians believe was found empty because Christ had been resurrected after death. “We can save the idea of America,” Jindal said. “Before it’s too late.” 
 
 Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum sought to play the role of a business-focused realist: asked about the Export-Import Bank, a conservative bogeyman, Santorum defended the institution as a crucial aid to U.S. manufacturing. Without it, he said, other countries would use similar state-sponsored institutions to give their own industries a leg up over American firms. “In order to have a level playing field which is what conservatives talk about all the time, then we have to have export financing,” Santorum said. 
 
 At one point, Graham launched into a diatribe about the state of the Republican Party, complaining that other candidates were making unrealistic promises – and that the GOP nominee might lose to a weak Democrat in 2016. 
 
 “At the end of the day folks, I am trying to solve a problem and win an election. I am tired of losing!” Graham shouted, as moderators tried to quiet him. He complained that the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, had made misleading claims that she’d been flat broke” after leaving the White House, and about Sen. Bernie Sanders’s long ties to socialism. “The number two guy [in the Democratic race] went to the Soviet Union and I don’t think he came back. If we can’t beat these people, then who in the hell are we going to beat!” 
 
 Graham’s speech may have been the emotional high point of a rather sleepy undercard, in which four long shots debated soberly about their tax plans. Jindal had touted his plan to make poor people a 2 percent federal income tax, a change from the present system where 45 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax. Former New York governor George Pataki said his plan was better than Jindal’s tax plan because he had the political skills to get it passed. 
 
 At one point, Pataki talked over another candidate in order to condemn Washington politicians for…interrupting. 
 
 “In Washington, they talk over each other!” he said, while talking over Graham. “I’m not used to that. I listen when people talk.” 
 
 Jenna Johnson, in Sioux City, Iowa, and David Weigel, in Boulder, Colo., contributed to this report. ||||| GOP presidential candidates clashed over immigration, government spending and how to handle Russia's Vladimir Putin during Tuesday night's debate. As the night got heated, the audience got involved: here are the must-watch moments. (Ashleigh Joplin and Rebecca Schatz/Fox Business Network) 
 
 GOP presidential candidates clashed over immigration, government spending and how to handle Russia's Vladimir Putin during Tuesday night's debate. As the night got heated, the audience got involved: here are the must-watch moments. (Ashleigh Joplin and Rebecca Schatz/Fox Business Network) 
 
 The fourth GOP presidential debate revealed deep splits among the eight candidates on the stage, especially on the subject of foreign policy — in which Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) and billionaire Donald Trump made an unlikely tag team calling for skepticism about U.S. interventions overseas. 
 
 The two come from different places, philosophically: Paul out of a libertarian tradition personified by his father, longtime Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), while Trump’s philosophy seems to be constructed as he goes along, revolving around the twin ideas that Trump makes better deals than anyone, and literally every problem is essentially a deal at its heart. 
 
 But the two of them both opposed other candidates — notably former tech executive Carly Fiorina, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) — who called for more aggressive military policies. 
 
 “We can’t continue to be the policeman of the world,” Trump said. 
 
 “You can be strong without being involved in every civil war around the world,” Paul said. 
 
 From left,Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul take the stage. (Morry Gash/AP) 
 
 But their alliance was a short-lived one. 
 
 In Tuesday night’s debate, Trump faced harsh skepticism from others on the stage. Ohio Gov. John Kasich called Trump’s plans to deport illegal immigrants en masse “silly.” Fiorina jabbed him for saying he knew Putin because they had met in a TV green room. Even Paul, his ally on foreign policy, criticized Trump for not understanding the trans-Pacific trade deal, even as Trump attacked it. 
 
 The race’s other front-runner, Carson, had a relatively quiet debate again. But quiet debates have not hurt him so far. 
 
 “Thank you for not asking me what I said in the 10th grade. I appreciate that,” Carson said, after moderators made reference to questions raised about his telling of his life story. “I have no problem with being vetted. What I do have a problem with is being lied about. And putting that out there as truth.” 
 
 Both Paul and former Florida governor Jeb Bush had strong debates, interjecting themselves into ongoing arguments in a way they hadn’t before. But for both, there is no guarantee that a good debate will revive fortunes that have been sagging for months. 
 
 The Republican field split sharply on the question of how to handle the Islamic State and Russia, with Trump calling for the United States to stay out of more confrontations – and other candidates blasting him for advocating showing weakness. 
 
 “If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it,” Trump said, noting that he had met Russian President Vladimir Putin through a “60 Minutes” episode. Trump expressed weariness about the troubles U.S. interventions had run into in Iraq and Libya. He also said the United States should not get involved militarily against the Islamic State, and instead let other countries in the region take the lead. “They say, ‘Keep going. Keep going, you dummies,’ ” Trump said. “We can’t continue to be the policeman of the world.” 
 
 Bush responded that Trump was misunderstanding how both Putin and the Islamic State see the world. “That’s like a board game. That’s like playing monopoly, that’s not how the world works,” he said. 
 
 That set off one of the most substantive exchanges of any Republican debate so far, which demonstrated a broad disagreement within the Republican field. Fiorina was among those calling for a more aggressive foreign policy, using both troops and diplomatic rebukes. She stepped in to criticize Trump for being naïve about the danger Putin posed, and said she herself would not talk to Putin right away. Although she said she had met him before: “Not in a green room for a show, but for a private meeting.” 
 
 Later, Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Kasich sparred about what they would have done if faced with the possibility that an enormous bank would fail. Cruz said he would not bail out the banks, as the federal government did during the financial crisis that began in 2008. Kasich said Cruz was showing he wasn’t ready to be an executive. 
 
 “When a bank is ready to go under, and depositors are ready to lose their life savings, you just don’t say, ‘We believe in philosophical concerns,’ ” Kasich said. He continued: “I’ve got to tell you, on-the-job training for president of the United States doesn’t work” – a jab that Cruz was as unprepared for the job as President Obama had been in 2009. 
 
 Cruz saw an opening. “So you would bail them out?” he said. That was a hard question for Kasich, since the bailout is deeply unpopular among many fiscal conservatives. 
 
 Kasich responded with a relatively vague promise to work out a plan, rather than simply repeating the same bailout that occurred back then. “You’ve got to deal with it. You can’t turn a blind eye to it,” Kasich said. 
 
 In general, Tuesday’s debate was one of the most lively and substantive of the primary season so far, with candidates delving deeply into their plans for taxes and spending. Moderators seemed in command of the facts behind their questions, and allowed arguments to run on – at one point, a moderator ignored the network’s own go-to-commercial music so that a back-and-forth could continue. The night’s main debate also featured standout performances by two candidates who sorely needed them: Bush and Paul. Some of the more prominent candidates in the polls took a back seat: Trump and Carson played minor roles, Rubio found himself on the defensive, and Cruz stayed out of the major back-and-forths. 
 
 Cruz’s most memorable moment might have been a mistake, in which he veered close to the error that undid fellow Texan Rick Perry in 2011. Cruz said he planned to cut five major agencies: the Departments of Commerce and Energy, the IRS, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Commerce was in there twice, but nobody called him on it. 
 
 Earlier in the evening, Paul had attacked Rubio as a big spender who would put the country deeper into debt with new benefits and military spending, in one of the sharpest moments of the debate. 
 
 Paul, who had been largely invisible in the debates up to that point, suddenly took on Rubio, saying that when he added up Rubio’s tax plan and his military plans, “You get something that looks to me not very conservative.” 
 
 Rubio, whose best moment in these debates was a comeback, replied with an attack on Paul’s national security record. 
 
 “I know that Rand is a committed isolationist,” he said. “I’m not.” 
 
 Paul continued on the attack, casting himself in a role that he had seemed reluctant to play in the past. He was the one Republican who would argue that the U.S. could possibly spend too much on national defense. 
 
 “Can you be a conservative, and be liberal on military spending?” he asked. 
 
 Kasich, one of the lower-polling candidates on the main stage in the fourth Republican debate, also attacked Trump for advancing a “silly argument” about deporting 11 million illegal immigrants. 
 
 “Come on, folks, we all know you can’t pick them up and ship them back across the border. It’s a silly argument. It’s not an adult argument,” Kasich said, in one of the most direct challenges to Trump in this debate so far. 
 
 Trump responded by citing deportations – done on a smaller scale – under Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s. “We have no choice,” Trump said. “We have no choice.” 
 
 When Kasich continued to press Trump, the billionaire responded with disdain: Trump said he runs a huge company. “I don’t have to hear from this man. Believe me,” he said. The crowd in the audience booed – showing a kind of disapproval that past debate crowds had usually reserved for the moderators. 
 
 Bush also rejected Trump’s call for deportations, saying it hurt the party’s ability to reach out to mainstream audiences: “They’re doing high-fives in the Clinton campaign right now when they hear this.” 
 
 Immigration was a dominant issue in the early going of the debate. Cruz jumped in to oppose Bush’s plan, calling it “amnesty.” He joked that party elites and the mainstream media were easy on Bush because they don’t feel the economic threat that immigrants pose to working-class Americans. If people were coming across the Rio Grande with journalism degrees, Cruz said, the American media would suddenly see immigration as a major problem. 
 
 The debate began shortly after 9 p.m. with three candidates saying they oppose efforts to raise the minimum wage because they believe it would hurt low-wage workers more than it would help them. 
 
 “There is nothing that we do now to win. We don’t win anymore. … Taxes too high. Wages too high,” said Trump, adding that making the wage too high would hurt America’s ability to compete with overseas manufacturers. “I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is.” 
 
 “Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases,” Carson said, saying the effect was particularly noticeable among African Americans. 
 
 “If you raise the minimum wage, you’re going to make people more expensive than a machine,” Rubio said. 
 
 In the early minutes of the debate, one voice missing was that of Bush, the former front-runner. At one point, he cut off Kasich, who seemed to be interrupting a question meant for Bush. 
 
 “You’ve already made two comments, John,” Bush said. “I got about four minutes last debate, I’m going to get my question this time.” 
 
 Bush then spoke about his desire to undo federal regulations, and blasted President Obama’s handling of the economy. “Hillary Clinton has said that Barack Obama’s policies get an A. Really?” Bush said, taking an aggressive tone, and focusing – unlike last time – on the leading Democrat in the race, not other Republicans. “It may be the best that Hillary Clinton can do. But it’s not the best that America can do.” 
 
 Earlier in the evening, four lower-performing candidates met in the fourth “undercard” debate. 
 
 [Live updates: Republican presidential debate] 
 
 The earlier contest was dominated by a running argument between two low-performing candidates with vastly different plans to succeed. One was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is aiming to attract moderate voters, and the other was Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal – who is trying to convince conservatives that moderates like Christie are untrustworthy sellouts. 
 
 Jindal, now consigned to the low-performers’ debate for the fourth time, was on the attack from the beginning of the debate. Christie, just relegated from the main stage, was an uncooperative target. Jindal repeatedly zinged Christie for being a “big-government Republican,” and at one point said he should get a “juice box” for participation in the conservative movement. 
 
 Christie, showing an uncharacteristic discipline in the face of annoyance, repeatedly said he was more interested in beating Hillary Clinton than in battling with Jindal. Christie – a former federal prosecutor – used the verb “prosecute” repeatedly when describing how he could debate Clinton in the general election. “You need someone who’s going to stand up on that stage and prosecute the case against her,” he said. Christie also made an appeal to law enforcement officers, saying he would support them more than President Obama had in the roiling debate over police shootings and police brutality. 
 
 “I will have your back,” Christie said. 
 
 Christie also ended on a note of bipartisan hopes: “I will go to Washington. ... To bring this entire country together for a better future for our children and grandchildren.” 
 
 The other two candidates on stage had less air time but still managed memorable moments. Former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.), describing his grudging admiration for hardball tactics employed by Democrats, shouted out the words “They fight!” It was the loudest moment of the night, though an odd message to leave people with. 
 
 Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who’s also been relegated from the main stage, once again defended federal “entitlement” programs like Medicare and Social Security, saying that Americans had paid into those programs and deserved to have them pay out. His most memorable moment, however, was a joke. When asked about Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, Huckabee responded like the folksy preacher he used to be: “Well, my wife’s name’s Janet. When you say Janet yellin’, I’m very familiar with what you mean.” 
 
 At various points, Jindal called out Cruz – though not by name – as all talk and no action. He called out Huckabee for being a big spender. And he zinged Christie, who had been the dominant figure in the debate’s first half, for doing too little to cut state spending. 
 
 “Let’s not be a second liberal party,” Jindal said, talking about Christie. “Let’s just not beat Hillary. Let’s elect a conservative to the White House, not just any Republican.” 
 
 Christie, for his part, did not rise to Jindal’s bait. Instead, he repeatedly cast himself as somebody who could appeal to moderates and win in blue states. 
 
 The most memorable moment for Santorum came when he tried to play off Jindal and Christie’s tension. He noted that one man claimed to be a true conservative, and the other said he could win in a blue state. Santorum raised his arms in a “Why not me?” gesture, a funny moment that indicated that he thought he combined both qualities. 
 
 Christie and Huckabee also spent time attacking the IRS and blaming the federal tax code for weakening manufacturing and America generally. 
 
 “First, make the tax code fairer, flatter and simpler,” said Christie. He described making the U.S. tax code so simple that individuals could file their taxes in 15 minutes. “I’ll be able to fire a whole bunch of IRS agents once we do that,” Christie said. 
 
 Huckabee went Christie one better and said that he’d eliminate the income tax entirely, and move to a “Fair tax,” essentially a national retail sales tax. 
 
 “We get rid of the IRS. We completely eliminate it. Because the government has no business knowing how much money we make, and how we make it ... that’s none of their business,” Huckabee said. 
 
 Huckabee and Christie were dismissed from the main debate stage after not reaching the 2.5 percent threshold in national polls. They joined Jindal and Santorum, who have been in the low-performers’ debate all along. 
 
 Two other candidates — former New York governor George Pataki and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) — were bumped from the undercard entirely after failing to reach a lower threshold of 1 percent in national polls. (Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, who appeared in the first undercard but not the next two, will again be kept off the stage because of low numbers). Graham, with a folksy charm and an aggressive call for greater military intervention, had been the dominant candidate in both of the last two undercards. It was not enough to raise his poll standing. 
 
 [Ben Carson is still the most popular presidential candidate. And it’s not close.] 
 
 These debates come just 13 days after the last Republican debates, which were widely perceived as a disaster for their hosts at CNBC. Both the crowd and the candidates attacked the moderators for asking argumentative questions, and the moderators let the candidates get away with blatant dodging of the truth. Trump, for instance, claimed he hadn’t said something that was included in his own immigration policy paper. The moderator, who had been right, apologized. 
 
 Tuesday night’s main event was moderated by Fox Business personalities Maria Bartiromo and Neil Cavuto. In an interview with The Washington Post, they said they aimed to do better — and that they wouldn’t put up with whining. 
 
 “I understand candidates getting annoyed, but they better be careful about looking like whiners and babies. I see this on the right and the left. I think you can ask very tough questions without coming off like an ass,” Cavuto said in an interview with Callum Borchers of The Fix. “I think it’s incumbent on us to know and appreciate the difference.” 
 
 Ahead of the debate, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus sent a letter to RNC members saying the committee has “worked tirelessly” with Fox to “fine-tune our debate process and ensure that our candidates have the best format and experience.” 
 
 “I am confident that we will finally have a debate focused on the economy and financial matters. The moderators tonight have also pledged to allow candidates 90 seconds to answer questions, rather than 60 seconds in past debates, as well as give each candidate a closing statement,” Priebus says in the letter, which was shared with The Washington Post by a Republican recipient. 
 
 Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a prebuttal ahead of the debate in the form of an Internet video that accused Bush, Rubio and Trump of backing tax plans that disproportionately benefit the wealthy. 
 
 The last debate was a breakout moment for Rubio. He was attacked by Bush — an old ally of Rubio’s from their days in Florida politics — for missing many votes in the Senate. 
 
 Rubio responded with a deeply stinging cut-down: “The only reason why you’re doing [this] now is because we’re running for the same position, and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you.” 
 
 Sean Sullivan, Jenna Johnson in Springfield, Ill., Philip Rucker in St. Francis, Wis., and Robert Costa in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
– Seven Republican candidates got a chance to debate without Donald Trump present on Thursday night—though the man Megyn Kelly referred to as "the elephant not in the room" still dominated media coverage, causing some to declare him the winner. Here's what the pundits are saying about people who were actually present: Jeb Bush. Bush had a great night, most analysts agree, highlighting how different the GOP race might be with no Donald. He was "more relaxed and more forceful" and "looked positively presidential" without Trump bullying him, writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. He bested Marco Rubio in an exchange on immigration and got in a few jabs at Hillary Clinton—and Trump. Marco Rubio. This wasn't Rubio's greatest debate, "but he had a better night than Cruz, which is strategically important for him," writes Niall Stanage at the Hill. He did, however, struggle when the debate turned to immigration reform. Rand Paul. After missing the last debate, Paul was another candidate to thrive in a Trump-less environment, and he proved to be "willing and able to speak to issues his party has struggled to address in recent years," writes Cillizza at the Post, who notes that while it's far too late for his campaign, "at least he had a moment." Chris Christie. The New Jersey governor had a good debate, offering his usual forceful arguments about his executive experience and his strength as a general election candidate, though "familiarity robs it of some of its power," writes Stanage at the Hill. Ted Cruz. Trump's strategy all along was to "create a circular GOP fire squad—with Ted Cruz at the center. And it worked," according to Glenn Thrush at Politico. Rival candidates hit Cruz early and often, and he also managed to lose several exchanges with the moderators, Thrush notes. John Kasich. Not an awful night for the Ohio governor, but one in which he failed to have any big moments, meaning that for his campaign to go anywhere now, "there are a lot of bodies he'll have to climb over," writes Anthony Zurcher at the BBC. Ben Carson. Carson went from "barely being asked any questions to providing answers that often bordered on incoherence," writes Cillizza. Like many others, he was puzzled by Carson's comments about Russia, which included the line "Putin is a one-horse country: oil and energy." Click for the best attack lines from the debate.