How do you think the debate next week will turn out?

[Mr. Morden]

I'm assuming that most of the candidates subscribe to the conventional wisdom that Trump isn't going to win the nomination.  Thus, they don't need to actually attack him in order to get him to drop in the polls.  Just because he's leading in the polls, doesn't mean he's going to be a target.  They're figuring that he's going to implode on his own anyway, so they don't need to waste their time on him.  OTOH, he's sucking the oxygen out of the room, so the 2nd/3rd tier candidates may want him out faster, and/or they may see an advantage is defining themselves against him, just like the other candidates beat up on Paul on foreign policy in the 08/12 debates.  And of course, Trump will attack all the other candidates, so they'll be prompted to respond.

But I still think it's possible that the other candidates will spend more time attacking the opponents who they see as more of a real threat to win the nomination--Bush and Walker.

On Trump, I am curious to see if he behaves himself at all.  Will he stop talking when the moderator says his time is up?  Will he follow any rules whatsoever, or just do whatever he wants?

[Mr. Morden]

I think 2000 may have been the first primary campaign in which the networks developed this innovation in time management in a crowded primary field debate: If you attack another candidate, they get 30 seconds to respond even if it isn't their turn.  This has the effect of giving the top tier candidates more speaking time, and gives less time to the 9th and 10th place candidates, who no one ever bothers attacking.

I don't know if this debate will have that rule, but I'm guessing it probably will.

[Mr. Morden]

This John Weaver (a Kasich advisor) quote is a few days old, but probably sums up how the non-Trump candidates are approaching this debate:

https://twitter.com/JWGOP/status/625810551243825152

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