Watching the presidential debates — for both major parties, really — is an exercise in testing how much awkwardness and blatant dishonesty one can stand. But we watch anyway, hoping for nuggets of ridiculousness we can carry with us throughout election season.
Tonight marks the fourth GOP presidential candidate showdown, live from Milwaukee at 9 p.m. EST (the kids' table debate is at seven).
This time, it will be broadcast on Fox Business, so maybe they will complain less often about being asked actual questions as moderators from CNBC asked at the last debate.
Another difference?
There will only be eight of them on stage instead of ten, which makes for less of a creepy, "Too Many Cooks" vibe than debates past.
Let's look at some other things to expect — or merely wish for — tonight.
Babby Hitler?
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush was once seen as reasonably electable in the general contest, at least compared to his more extreme opponents. But what makes him not electable is his fundamental misunderstanding of time travel. On Monday he told The Huffington Post "hell yeah, I would" in response to the question of whether he would kill baby Hitler, thereby, in theory, preventing the Holocaust and World War II. But, as Salon's Simon Maloy writes, we don't know what alternate chain of events would have been set off as a consequence. Perhaps going back in time and bribing officials at the Vienna Academy of Art to accept his paintings would be a better approach.
Chumming with Pastor Kill-the-Gays.
As the Associated Press puts it, there's "quiet consensus" that Sen. Ted Cruz is set to gain momentum, starting with this debate. Huh. You mean the same Ted Cruz who, along with two second-tier prez candidates (Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal, whom we're enjoying putting in parentheses right now) spent the weekend at a "religious freedom" conference hosted by a pastor who literally — and very loudly — says that homosexuals should be executed. Here's a link to Rachel Maddow's coverage of that fun little shindig, where Cruz said atheists shouldn't be president.
Teaming up on Rubio.
We're guessing most of the people on stage will be eager to take down Sen. Marco Rubio, the slick boy wonder from Florida who is enjoying a bump in the polls — and beating the snot out of Bush, his former mentor. It's only logical that Donald Trump and Ben Carson will try to fiercely defend their leads against him, and Bush and Cruz will try to knock him down from behind.
Will Fiorina do more lying to get all the attention back?
When we live-Tweeted the last GOP debate, we noted how good at improv the former Hewlett-Packard CEO is. One of the biggest whoppers she told that evening was a claim that female unemployment skyrocketed under President Obama. Since her breakthrough performance at the second debate (remember? The fetus?) her numbers have fallen some, so she may have to interrupt her opponents onstage with louder, crazier lies. Good luck with that. In terms of dishonesty, your competition is stiff Carly. Just look at this nifty little file Politifact put together that indicates 79 percent of the Carson quotes they rated were "mostly false," "false" or "pants on fire."
Trump to "not" go after Carson, who is somehow polling really well.
Yes, despite apparently not knowing the difference between things that exist and things that don't, Carson is doing quite well. And despite having no business running for president, so is Trump. Early speculation suggested Trump would defend his lead from Carson by trying to take him down at tonight's debate. But The Hill is reporting that Trump is saying he won't go after Carson, or isn't planning on it, anyway.
And, finally…
The cup controversy.
Will the moderators ask the eight people on stage to chime in on Starbucks' war-on-Christmas cup controversy? Oh, please, make it so, Fox Business moderators.
Whatever happens, we'll be live-tweeting the event over at @cl_tampabay and @kbradshawcl.
This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2015.