You may legitimately wonder how the other Republican candidates for president are going to catch up

Unpleasant

donald trump What is their plan to beat someone who is more than 30 points ahead in the polls and who has used his many arrests like the Super Mario Brothers use red mushrooms, they only make him stronger?

While hope is not typically a viable political strategy, most Trump opponents seem to simply hope that the former president will be included in the tape between now and Jan. 15, the date of the Iowa caucuses.

But in the absence of intervention from above, the GOP’s first primary debate on Wednesday gave us a glimpse of how Trump’s opponents plan to move forward in what was a snoozer of a primary.

campaign.

To participate in the debate, it should be noted that the candidates were forced by the Republican National Committee to sign a pledge of loyalty in support of the eventual winner. Of course, Trump, who refused to attend the first debate, would not sign the pledge himself.

That tells you everything you need to know about how this primary is going to play out.

The podium in Milwaukee was filled with politicians with politician titles. And then there was that one man. No experience. No record. And hold on

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views that, charitably, raise eyebrows.

Without Trump playing himself, Vivek Ramaswamy tried to fill his shoes.

This isn’t complicated, guys, the 38-year-old with no political experience and a scanned personal history of even voting said flippantly to an early question.

Once again on the Republican presidential field is a wealthy outsider who sees the Republican Party as an empty vessel to be occupied by whatever pirate can take over. Ramaswamy shows no ideological underpinnings. No policy orthodoxy. He’s just a smooth sloganeering who seems to think it’s the president’s job to talk and dominate the attention economy anyway.

And lately Ramaswamy tends to it.

He flirts with thinking about the truth about September 11. hand over Ukraine to the Russians, and Taiwan to the Chinese. Lowering the US alliance with Israel. Decriminalization of hard drugs. Imposing a huge inheritance tax.

None of this sounds good to a conservative like me. But Ramaswamy commands attention in a world that rewards attention-seekers who can twist a sentence, even if they’re slightly annoying. If he manages to get past 15% in the post-debate polls, Trump will come for him soon enough.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was the most influential in turning the debates. Most of what Republican voters know about the DeSantis campaign comes from four sources: Trump, who relentlessly attacks DeSantis and no one else; Never Trump, Inc., which thinks the way to beat the former president is a Biden versus Trump replay; Democrats, who see things the same way as the Never Trumpers; and the mainstream media,

which might benefit from gaining a larger audience

if Trump becomes the nominee.

From the beginning of August DeSantis had faced more than $20 million worth of negative independent TV attack ads, more than Trump and President Biden combined ($17.3 million). For him,

Wednesday

The goal of the night was to rise above the noise and negativity and, in his own words, tell Republicans who he is and why he’s on the run.

DeSantis had some sweet moments during his conservative record as Florida governor. He didn’t dominate the stage, but maybe he stabilized himself. He lives to fight another day, but he still has a fight on his hands in his quest to consolidate the non-Trump field.

The two people

who were pleasantly surprised

former Vice President Mike Pence and former Governor of South Carolina. Nikki Haley. Pence delivered an energetic and spirited performance, aimed squarely at Iowa’s Christian conservatives (the caucuses are his Alamo), and Haley, in a stunning twist, replaced a listless Chris Christie as the main anti-Trump foil on stage.

Biden didn’t do this to us; our Republicans did this to us too. …Trump has added $8 trillion to our debt, and our children will never forgive us, Haley saidbased on Trump’s approach to the national debt.

Pence and Haley both switched it up with Ramaswamy, perhaps playing to the older Fox News viewers who might see the newcomer as too brash a whippersnapper.

Here’s who didn’t emerge from the debate: a candidate truly ready to take on Trump. And yet Republicans face a general electorate that hates Trump (64% say they definitely or probably won’t vote for him) and overwhelmingly believe that a convicted felon should not be eligible to run for president (70% say no). Everyone on stage except Asa Hutchinson

and a reluctant Christie raised their hands to say they would support Trump even if he is convicted.

All of this is set against the backdrop of a Biden presidency

constant criticism of the economy,

according to poll after poll after poll. If the GOP nominates someone south of seventy years old who isn’t in prison, the Republicans would have more than a fighting chance.

But will a single voter who currently supports Trump move to one of the other Republican candidates after this debate? You must be skeptical.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another Trump arrest column to watch.

Scott Jennings is a former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and a senior political commentator at CNN.

@ScottJenningsKY