• CNN’s format was awful. The entire effort was intended to instigate fights between and among the candidates. They wanted a brawl. The early part of the debate was the worst — right out of the box, piling on Donald Trump. Like Trump or not, this is a Republican debate. As I’ve been saying for a while, when will the RNC stop turning over the GOP debates to the media? I find these debate formats demeaning of the candidates and not particularly informative.
• Twice now Ted Cruz was treated as a third-tier candidate. He received very little time and was rarely called on. Moreover, when he tried to speak as a”skeptic” during the discussion about global warming — where Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, and Chris Christie apparently accepted the supposed “science” of global warming — Jake Tapper rudely cut him off. When Cruz had about 60 uninterrupted seconds or so to address the Iran deal debacle, he was superb. Same with the Supreme Court. There appears to be a pattern in these debate to marginalize him. Unfortunately, given the nature of these debates, he needs to become a bit more aggressive in pushing his way into the discussions.
• Tapper repeatedly sought a fight between Jeb Bush and Trump, which is why they wound up using more time than most of the other candidates. Did we learn anything from most of it? No.

Read the article “Levin: 5 Takeaways from 2nd GOP Debate” on conservativereview.com.