The Iowa Republican debate without Trump: The elephant not in the room

At least Jeb Bush didn’t have to listen to that “low-energy” bit again.

The seventh Republican presidential debate of the campaign cycle, held four days before Iowa voters caucus, stood out for the guy who stayed away.

Donald Trump staged his own camera magnet 2 miles across town, refusing to play nice with the Fox News Channel because he thought the Republican-friendliest network played unnecessarily mean with him.

That left an elephantine hole on the Iowa Events Center debate stage. The remaining seven candidates were left mostly to snipe at one another. In response to an opening question, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas briefly mocked Trump’s bombastic campaign style.

“ ‘I’m a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly. And Ben (Carson, the candidate with celebrated medical credentials), you’re a terrible surgeon.’ Now that we’ve gotten past the Donald Trump portion of this debate …,” said Cruz, Trump’s chief challenger in the polls.

But later, he did slip a shiv in Trump’s direction while fencing with moderator Chris Wallace over whether the debate’s questions gratuitously egged the field into clashing with one another.

“If you guys ask one more mean question,” Cruz said, “I may have to leave the stage.”

Iowa voters caucus Monday night. New Hampshire’s primary follows eight days later. On Thursday, the candidates eased back slightly on attacking one another.

Meanwhile, instead of answering questions from Fox moderators Thursday night, Trump held forth for adoring supporters in an auditorium at Drake University.

“When you’re treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights,” he said. “And we have to stick up for our country when we’re being mistreated.”

Much of his appearance echoed his usual campaign speeches. Trump billed Thursday’s gathering as a benefit for veterans — a frequent theme in his surprising jet ride to the top of the polls. He said his charity has raised nearly $6 million. Trump said he pitched in $1 million and listed a handful of wealthy New Yorkers who contributed.

Yet the founder of the group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said it would reject any donations from the Trump event rather than “be used for political stunts.”

The left-leaning VoteVets.org called Trump “a loser” for what it described as using veterans to avoid tougher questioning.

Trump’s spat with Fox started in the first of the season’s debates when network anchor Megyn Kelly asked him to explain his string of seemingly sexist remarks.

Ever since, he’s complained about her. When, this week, the network issued a snarky release about his demands, he pulled out. On Thursday, the network said Trump had demanded the network donate $5 million to the Trump charity fund.

Meanwhile, Cruz challenged Trump to meet, moderator-free, one-on-one with an offer of $1.5 million for veterans from donors backing him. Other candidates made similar suggestions.

On the Fox debate stage, the remaining contenders got more time to pitch themselves to Iowa’s famously late-deciding voters. With Trump gone, they went after one another. But more often, they attacked Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.

As poll leaders among those present, Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio drew more questions, and more attacks, during the debate. Bush joined the two in arguments over who owned the hardest line against illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, the candidates stressed what they had in six previous debates. Cruz boasted of being a thorn in the side of the Washington establishment. Rubio hammered on the dangers of the left and the need for conservatives to nominate a young candidate with an eye to the future.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said again that the others don’t have the same executive experience to be ready for Oval Office crises. Bush, a former governor, pushed the notion that he was a serious man with accomplishments in Florida.

Likewise, Gov. John Kasich said his experience in Ohio shows what a centrist can pull off.

And Carson boasted that as “the only one up here without a political title” he was better suited to fix what’s wrong with politics.

Thursday’s dueling events leave unanswered whether voters will see Trump as a guy who ran from a fight, or who won by telling the nation’s most popular conservative media organization he wouldn’t bow to its terms.

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 9:31 PM with the headline "The Iowa Republican debate without Trump: The elephant not in the room."