Ninth Republican Debate

The ninth GOP debate featured the top six remaining candidates for the party’s presidential nomination. They repeated several false and misleading claims, and made some new ones, too.

• Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that “we have 80 years of precedent of not confirming Supreme Court justices in an election year.” That’s wrong. Justice Anthony Kennedy was confirmed in 1988, an election year.

One might have expected the ninth Republican presidential debate to be a cut above the earlier edition. With Chris Christie out of the race and Ben Carson present but basically out of the running, it was a chance for the race to get serious, for the five candidates who could potentially win this thing to make their cases without much distraction from the B players.