Dec 14^th

Tomorrow night is the last “debate.” Praise be! I will not be watching it because any interesting fireworks will surely be picked up and re-broadcast later. And I have no wish to listen to Carly Fiorina nervously and ferociously harangue the audience about the awfulness of Hillary Clinton. It also appears that Rand Paul has a spot on the main stage; these are reason enough to avoid this final performance.

Chris Hayes presented an interesting factoid this morning. Over the last many election cycles the ultimate Republican nominee has won either the Iowa caucus or the New Hampshire primary. If your very favorite Republican candidate doesn’t win either of these don’t bet on him/her becoming the Republican standard bearer in the general election.

The “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough, tell us that Senator Cruz is seriously disliked by his Senate colleagues. I can’t imagine that given that he called the Senate leader, Senator McConnell, a liar, but when I googled “Senators for Ted Cruz” nothing came up. I guess that Cruz will not have a committee of his colleagues promoting his candidacy. Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School claimed that Cruz was a brilliant student. He might well have been brilliant as a law student but alienating the vast majority of your Senate colleagues if you want to run for President is bone stupid. Intelligence and judgment are certainly positively correlated but high intelligence is no guarantee of superior judgment; Cruz is a case in point.