GOP candidates joust over foreign policy, immigration

Prior to Saturday’s debate, Trump won 34.5 percent of voter support in New Hampshire followed by Kasich with 15.7 percent.

The debate, hosted by CBS News, was certainly the most entertaining of the cycle with candidates repeatedly going after each other with an audience that loudly booed throughout the night.

Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Jeb Bush clashed angrily over the Iraq war, the Bush family and Trump’s business dealings at an acrimonious debate that underscored the importance of South Carolina’s primary in a week.

It didn’t take long for the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the matter of his replacement on the bench to become a presidential debate topic.

The former president is expected to campaign for his brother around the Charleston area on Monday.

Among the contenders, only Jeb Bush said Obama had “every right” to nominate a justice during his final year in office.

Meanwhile, a recent survey from Morning Consult shows the real estate mogul with more than double the support of his political rivals among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. He’s got that pragmatic, reasonable, lets-all-get-along persona nailed down now (though his claim early on that “there won’t be divisions” over Supreme Court nominees “when I’m president” was probably the dumbest thing I heard all night). “It’s up to (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell and everybody else to stop it. It’s called delay, delay, delay”.

The latest polls show Donald Trump leading the pack by double digits ahead of Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Bush hit back saying, “I’m sick and exhausted of Barack Obama blaming my brother for all of the problems” he faces before quickly turning the fire on Trump. Bush was consistently popular with Republicans during his presidency.

It’ll function as many public parts George W Bush has had up to now in his brother’s strategy. Then the candidates, in a series of fiery exchanges, returned to the familiar conflicts that have dominated their previous encounters.

“They’re not all rapists, and you-know-who said”, Bush said.

The governor’s warnings did little to deter his colleagues.

Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio – While there was no clear victor for tonight’s debate, the high-stakes cage match can be called a tie between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who had a lengthy sparring match over illegal immigration. Cruz also accused Rubio of taking a more moderate approach when speaking to Spanish-language media in an attempt to appeal to Hispanics.

“I don’t often agree with Marco, and I don’t often agree with Ted, but I can in this case”, Trump said.

With the first two nomination contests in Iowa and New Hampshire under their collective belt, the candidates vying to be their party’s standardbearer are blanketing the so-called Palmetto State known for its bare-knuckle politics. He had stumbled in a debate days before that vote.

“To portray himself as the only consistent conservative in the race, that’s simply not true, and it will be exposed as the campaign moves forward”, Rubio said. Carson also called for national healing after reading criticism of Scalia in the wake of his death.

Cruz called Scalia a “legal giant”, “brilliant” and “faithful to the Constitution”, adding the Senate needs to stand strong and not give up by “allowing Barack Obama to make one more liberal appointee”.

Ben Carson used a quote from Stalin – that in order to destroy a healthy body “you have to undermine three principles: their spiritual life, their patriotism and their morality” – that appears to be utterly and entirely fabricated. In fact, it’s been over 80 years since a lame duck president has appointed a Supreme Court justice.

Bush and Kasich both see an opening in SC after Rubio’s stumbles.

And when Jeb Bush roasted Kasich on his decision to expand Medicaid expansion in OH, the Prince of Light defended his record.