About that debate.

Before we talk about winners, let’s discuss who or what were the biggest losers at the first Republican debate.

Hands down, it was Fox News and the RNC.

What in the world were these two entities thinking when they staged a political debate in Fiserv Arena in Milwaukee and allowed 7,000 partisans to pack the joint to cheer, boo and interrupt the candidates?

I’m sure Fiserv hosts lots of rowdy crowds when the Bucks are in town, but political debates, where Americans are trying to get a look at candidates to lead the Free World, is not the place for unruly audiences.

Future debates should either be held without live audiences or with much smaller groups that are admonished to hold their applause until the end.

As Chris Christie pointed out, when the crowd tried to drown out his statements that were critical of Donald Trump: “This is the great thing about this country. Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth.”

The audience cacophony turned a-difficult-to-control-situation - eight hopefuls, two hours - into a shouting match between the candidates.

The rules to get on the stage were too broad, resulting in too many candidates on stage.

There should be a maximum of six, ideally four.

Period.

Partly responsible for the GOP free-for-all were moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, two of the networks best anchors, who first lost control of the raucous audience and then the candidates.

Speaking of the candidates, armed with nothing more than my BA in political science, here is my analysis:

The biggest loser on the stage was Vivek Ramaswamy.

Until Wednesday night I’d been impressed by his smarts, eloquence and youth. On stage, however, he was petulant, rude and obnoxious and appeared to be overdosing on Adderall. I know, I know, the Trump faithful love him. He never criticizes their guy, and he shares some of the same obnoxious qualities as Trump.

Once Ramaswamy pronounced Trump the best president of the “21st century,” which is a rather small pond when you think about it, I wish the moderators had asked Ramaswamy why he was running against Trump.

They didn’t. Missed opportunity.

The other losers were Asa Hutchinson, a non-entity, Gov. Doug Burgum, who seems nice enough, and surprisingly Sen. Tim Scott.

Together they slurped up more than 20 debate minutes.

Mike Pence had an okay night. Kamikaze pilot Chris Christie did what he does best: delivered zingers.

The winners? Nikki Haley who gave a spirited and cogent explanation of her support for Ukraine and who went after Ramaswamy for his incoherent foreign policy positions.

Finally, there was Ron DeSantis. Predictions that the field would gang up on him were wrong. In fact, it appeared that the other candidates had a gentlemen’s agreement not to mention his name, to keep the front runner from getting time for rebuttals. Still, DeSantis exhibited control by letting the others on the stage savage Vivek while his arguments were smart and focused on what he did in Florida, where he has a remarkable record.

When the debate turned to runaway federal spending, DeSantis said this:

“Why are we in this mess?”

“Part of it, and a major reason, is how this federal government handled Covid-19 by locking down this economy,” he said. “It was a mistake. It should have never happened. And in Florida, we led the country out of lockdown, kept our state free and open. As your president, I will never let the deep state bureaucrats lock you down. You don’t take somebody like Fauci and coddle him. You bring Fauci, you sit him down, and you say, ‘Anthony, you are fired!”

Couldn’t agree more. And this is why many of us like DeSantis, especially as the CDC tries to ramp up fear of covid once again, possibly setting the table for more unconstitutional actions by the feds.

If that happens there really is only one choice for the GOP nomination.