Last night Donald Trump’s intellectual and temperamental limitations were on display for three hours. His ability to frighten his interlocutors began to slip away on national television. His act is getting tired and his rivals are slowly figuring out how to make him uncomfortable.  Anyone who watched last night’s GOP debate thinking that Donald Trump was a commanding alpha male came away disabused of that notion.  He’s a VERY thin-skinned narcissist who can’t take a joke and last night’s extended format helped show the severe limitations of his shtick.  Trump’s act is made for commercial TV, but CNN went PBS on his ass.  Allowing the debate to continue for three hours left “The Donald” about two hours short on glib one-liners.

There’s no there there and last night Trump’s rivals began to see that he can’t really hurt them as the campaign moves from the name recognition phase to the policy discussion phase. Whether or not Trump’s numbers slip, other candidates’ numbers will surely start to rise.

The good news for the G.O.P. is that their efforts to corral their biggest public relations problem began to bear fruit last night. Unfortunately for them, Trump has plenty of cash and will probably insist on hanging around even after everyone (including the media) acknowledges that his poll numbers don’t mean what he thinks - and incessantly tells us - they mean.