Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, John Kasich and Ted Cruz feuded over rhetoric, elections and immigration at the March 3 debate in Detroit. Here are the key moments. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) 
 
 The four remaining Republican presidential candidates gathered in Detroit on Thursday night for the 11th debate of the GOP nomination fight. I tweeted it. The Fix team annotated it. And, below, I picked some of the best — and worst — of the night that was. 
 
 Winners 
 
 * Ted Cruz: The senator from Texas picked a nice moment to have his best debate of the primary season. He flashed his prosecutorial chops when making the case that Donald Trump was neither a real conservative nor someone who could win the White House for Republicans this fall. His persistent calls for Trump to release the audiotape of an off-the-record interview with the New York Times were effective and put the real estate mogul off his game a bit. Cruz also benefited from the fact that Trump and Marco Rubio went after each other hammer and tongs for the first hour of the debate, a brawl that allowed him to look like he was above the fray and magnanimous. 
 
 * John Kasich: The narrowing of the presidential field quite clearly helped the Ohio governor on Thursday night. Sure, it often felt as if he was participating in an entirely different debate than the other three candidates. But, when he got a chance to talk, Kasich’s uplifting and positive message made for a welcome relief from the name-calling, interrupting and general rudeness that dominated most of the conversation on stage in Detroit. Kasich effectively made the case for why being an insider was a good thing — a very hard one to make in an election like this one — and probably won himself some votes from voters fed up with all the fighting. Did he do enough to boost him into the top tier? No. But that simply isn’t possible for Kasich, given the delegate math. Still, he deserves credit for putting his best foot forward. 
 
 * Fox News moderators: Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace are a really good trio. They asked well-thought-out questions that anticipated — and avoided — the talking points of the candidates. I l-o-v-e-d when Wallace called up a series of fact checks aimed at rebutting Trump's talking points on how he would handle the debt and deficit issues. Ditto the video triptych that Kelly introduced showing Trump contradicting himself over and over. That's what moderators should do; force candidates off their regular shtick, make them think on their feet a bit and, in the process, show viewers who they really are. 
 
 * Teenagers: A penis size reference within the first 10 minutes of the debate? The 12-year-old version of me would have laughed like crazy at Trump's "guarantee" about the size of his genitals. (Okay, fine. The 40-year-old version of me laughed, too.) 
 
 Losers 
 
 * Donald Trump: Trump totally dominated the debate in terms of speaking time and the broader conversation. There were times where it felt more like an interview with Trump than a debate with three candidates not named Trump on stage. As is usually the case with Trump in a debate setting, the more he talks, the less positive the outcome is for him. He repeatedly came across as juvenile — calling Rubio "Little Marco" and Cruz "Lyin' Ted." Hell, within the first 10 minutes of the debate Trump was insisting that questions about his endowment — not the financial kind — were way off. 
 
 From a more substantive perspective, Trump took real body blows — especially from Cruz — regarding Trump University and the comments he made in an off-the-record session with the New York Times. Trump, as he has in nearly every debate, showed a wafer-thin understanding of policy and, when pressed about that lack of knowledge, reverted to name-calling. Does any of the above matter? It hasn't yet. 
 
 * Marco Rubio: The senator from Florida seemed to have resigned himself to a kamikaze mission against Trump during this debate. He jabbed at and with Trump over and over again in the debate's first 60 minutes, turning every question — and answer — into an attack on Trump. It hurt Trump but hurt Rubio, too, as he struggled to get back to his more positive “new American century” message. Rubio improved in the second half of the debate, but Cruz was better throughout. It’s hard to see how this debate changes the dynamic set in place on Tuesday night: Trump as the favorite, Cruz with the next-best chance of being the nominee, Rubio as Trump spoiler. 
 
 *Debate audience: From the mugging for the cameras — act like you’ve been there! — to the constant cheering and jeering for every word the candidates uttered, the audience was annoying at best and distracting at worst. I am not a big fan of debates held without a live audience, but this is getting bad. 
 
 * The Republican Party: The first hour of the debate was an absolute disaster for Republicans hoping to rebrand their party heading into the 2016 general election. It looked more like a high school cafeteria food fight than an even semi-serious conversation about issues. 
 
 My party is committing suicide on national television. #GOPDebate — Jamie Johnson (@JamieJohnsonUSA) March 4, 2016 
 
 Assuming Trump is the nominee — and he has the most obvious path — then this debate will provide Democrats with roughly 100 minutes’ worth of raw footage of Rubio and Cruz savaging the real estate mogul that they can use in negative ads this fall. A lose-lose for the GOP. 
 
 * The thing on Ted Cruz’s lip: Was it the piece of a mint? Spittle? A piece of tooth? I don’t know. But what I do know is that it will haunt my dreams. ||||| (CNN) Republicans began their debate Thursday night with insults and ended with three candidates pledging to back Donald Trump should he win the nomination. 
 
 Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took more shots at Trump in Fox News' debate -- and through it all, the billionaire businessman seemed to relish standing center stage, defending himself against foes and moderators while showing his mettle to supporters. 
 
 All three were happy to deflect efforts to drag them into sustained policy discussions and kept things personal. Ohio Gov. John Kasich was content to stand to the side and watch it all. 
 
 Here are seven takeaways from Thursday's Republican debate: 
 
 Penises, dogcatchers and yoga 
 
 Minutes into the debate, Trump was boasting about the size of his penis. 
 
 Clearly annoyed that Rubio had joked days ago about the size of Trump's hands -- suggesting, as Trump put it, that "if they're small, something else might be small" -- the Republican front-runner made a claim seldom heard during a presidential debate. 
 
 "I guarantee you, there's no problem. I guarantee you," he said. 
 
 It was a PG-13 start to a two-hour food fight that parents wouldn't have wanted their kids to watch. 
 
 Early on, as Rubio pressed Trump for more policy details, the two gave each other nicknames. "Don't worry about it, Little Marco," Trump said, to which Rubio responded, "Let's hear it, Big Donald." 
 
 Trump said Florida wouldn't elect Rubio dogcatcher after all of his missed Senate votes. Cruz gave Trump instructions on letting go of his anger: "Donald, learn not to interrupt, it's not complicated. Count to 10, Donald. Count to 10. Count to 10." 
 
 Later, when Cruz told Trump to "breathe," Rubio jumped in and joked that the two were doing yoga. 
 
 "I really hope that we don't see yoga on this stage," Cruz answered. 
 
 And then Rubio pointed to Trump, who'd just admitted his flexibility on policies, and said: "Well he's very flexible, so you never know." 
 
 The Republican candidates put on a show -- but not the type they'd like to play for a general election audience. CNN analyst Amanda Carpenter called it "embarrassing." And pollster Frank Luntz tweeted that 22 of 25 participants in the focus group he led Thursday night predicted the debate would hurt the GOP's chances in November. "This has to stop. Seriously," he tweeted. 
 
 Trump under attack 
 
 It seemed as if Fox News had grown tired of Trump's opponents' inability to knock him down -- so the moderators decided to do it themselves. 
 
 Chris Wallace had a real-time fact check queued up when Trump asserted he'd cut $500 billion in spending -- pointing out that his strategies, eliminating the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency (which Trump called the Department of Environmental Protection), would save just a fraction of that amount. 
 
 When Trump tried to claim he'd close the gap by negotiating better drug prices through Medicare, a constant talking point of his, Wallace had a second graphic already prepped pointing out that, too, wouldn't get Trump even close to eliminating the deficit. CNN's Reality Check team agrees on that point. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Megyn Kelly questions Trump over Trump University Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Megyn Kelly questions Trump over Trump University 01:33 
 
 JUST WATCHED Fox anchor challenges Trump on deficit plans Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Fox anchor challenges Trump on deficit plans 01:37 
 
 It forced an awkward and unspecific claim about "other things" out of Trump. 
 
 "I'm not only talking about drugs, I'm talking about other things," he said. "We'll save more than $300 billion a year if we negotiate. We don't negotiate." 
 
 Megyn Kelly took her shot later on, setting up three clips of Trump taking one policy position and then, days later, taking the opposite position. 
 
 Trump was unmoored, insisting he had logical explanations about his reversals on Syrian refugees, the war in Afghanistan and more -- and that by the way, it doesn't matter much anyway. 
 
 "You have to have a certain degree of flexibility," he said. 
 
 Ted Cruz takes a page from Chris Christie 
 
 Ted Cruz needs Trump's momentum to ebb as much as anyone, but he didn't spend much of the night on the attack. For the most part, Cruz stood aside and watched Rubio and Trump rip each other to shreds, and then turned to the audience and threw up his hands. 
 
 "Megyn, let me just ask the voters at home: Is this the debate you want playing out in the general election?" he said. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Ted Cruz: Donald Trump funded Hillary Clinton in 2008 Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Ted Cruz: Donald Trump funded Hillary Clinton in 2008 01:05 
 
 Cruz took his shots at Trump, too, but he let Rubio do the dirty work -- betting that he, rather than the Florida senator, will reap the benefits. 
 
 Rubio, for instance, built on the attack line Mitt Romney started earlier in the day regarding Trump University, pressing Trump over and over to admit he was ripping off the people who paid $36,000 for his courses at a school that's now the subject of a class-action lawsuit. 
 
 Cruz is trying to co-opt the angry electorate that Trump has tapped into, and his pitch is simple: Trump is the villain you've been mad at. 
 
 "For 40 years, Donald has been part of the corruption in Washington that you're angry about," he said. 
 
 It's entirely possible that the debate did nothing to change Cruz's fortunes. But he does have a big opportunity on the horizon. 
 
 Of the four states to only allow Republicans to vote in GOP nominating contests, Cruz has won three, thanks to his strength among conservatives and the rules limiting Trump's ability to expand the electorate. And all four states set to vote Saturday -- Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine -- have closed contests. 
 
 Kasich's Jekyll and Rubio's Hyde 
 
 Kasich will not, under any circumstances, engage directly with his foes on the debate stage. 
 
 "As the Democrats tell me all the time, I can get the crossover votes," he boasted early in the debate, adding that he's often told at town halls that he seems to be "the adult on stage." 
 
 "I've talked about issues. I have never tried to go and get into these kinda scrums that we're seeing here," he said. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Gov. John Kasich: 'I will win Ohio' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Gov. John Kasich: 'I will win Ohio' 01:16 
 
 He demonstrated his experience on economic and budgetary challenges and foreign policy, and showed no signs of backing out of the race anytime soon -- especially not before Ohio's March 15 primary. 
 
 For Rubio, that's all a big problem. 
 
 The man who won the hearts of the Republican establishment by confronting Trump head-on in the last debate was ready to hit the billionaire again and again -- but a 1-for-11 Super Tuesday intervened, and some of the shine wore off. 
 
 He confronted Trump once again, baiting the business mogul by calling him names, attacking his business ventures and accusing him of knowing nothing about policy -- even though he struggled with a raspy voice. 
 
 Trump's dance on immigration 
 
 On the campaign trail, Trump has proposed changing U.S. libel laws so that politicians can more easily sue journalists. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Donald Trump refuses to release New York Times tape Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Donald Trump refuses to release New York Times tape 02:07 
 
 But on Thursday night, Trump said the bond between reporters and politicians who agree to go off-the-record is too strong to break. That, he said, is why he won't ask The New York Times to release a transcript or recording of an off-the-record conversation he had with the newspaper's editorial board about immigration. 
 
 "I think being off the record is very important. I will honor it," he said. 
 
 Then, Trump allowed -- as his foes claimed -- that he might have softened his hard-line stance he has taken on the campaign trail that he will build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. 
 
 "I will say that in immigration as well as with anything else, there has to be tug and pull. You have to be able to have some flexibility," he said. "I may have said something like that with The New York Times. But I am not going to release something off the record." 
 
 Trump's opponents pounced on his remark, but they could be misreading his support. Many Trump backers say they know he can't achieve everything he proposes, but believe he'll fight for it more effectively than anyone else. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Donald Trump's entire Michigan debate interview Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Donald Trump's entire Michigan debate interview 05:27 
 
 In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash afterward, he defended that flexibility, saying: "I'm flexible with everything. You can't just say, 'this is it and I'm never going to talk,'" he said. "With that being said, you have to make great deals." 
 
 Sticking to the pledge 
 
 Coming less than 12 hours after Mitt Romney launched a scathing broadside against Trump, the candidates' answer to the last question of the debate was particularly striking. 
 
 Fox News moderators asked Rubio, Cruz and Kasich whether they'd back Trump if he wins the nomination. 
 
 All three said yes. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Would the GOP candidates support Trump as nominee? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Would the GOP candidates support Trump as nominee? 01:14 
 
 The moment won't help Rubio -- who had joined the #NeverTrump movement of Republicans vowing not to support Trump on Twitter last week -- with that crowd. 
 
 More important, though, is what they didn't say. 
 
 The premise of the question was that Trump had already won the nomination. But there are scenarios in which Republicans could have more chances to stop that from happening, even after all 50 states vote. 
 
 Romney is angling for a floor fight at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. And none of the candidates said they wouldn't fight it out at a contested convention. 
 
 A better question: Would the Republican field support the candidate who wins the most delegates? 
 
 So what does this change? 
 
 Trump struggled with policy details, butted in when other candidates were speaking and sparred with the moderators. 
 
 So what else is new? 
 
 His sharp, and sharply personal, exchanges with his rivals might have been amped up Thursday night, but still sounded much like Trump's first 10 debates. 
 
 The front-runner doesn't get rattled or lose his wit, even when he is under attack from everyone else on stage. He often seems to relish it -- as if his foes' criticism gives him an excuse to stop holding back. 
 
 None of the debates so far have changed the trajectory of the race -- in part because Trump is the master of the debate post-game, finding ways to deflect weak points and suck up media oxygen while branding his foes with nicknames like "Little Marco" and "Lyin' Ted" and claiming victory -- no matter what happened. ||||| The 2016 cycle's 11th Republican presidential debate became an all-too-literal dick-measuring contest within minutes, and proceeded to force viewers to question what counts as debate, or as political discourse, or as communication between human beings, for a full two hours. 
 
 Marco Rubio referred to Donald Trump as "Big Don," out loud, in a room with people and microphones in it. Ted Cruz at one point declared, "I really hope we don't see yoga on this stage." Even the ostensibly "moderate" John Kasich went out of his way to praise deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi for some reason. 
 
 We won't know who "really" won until poll results trickle in and the primary voters cast their ballots. But in the meantime, here are the candidates who ended the night better off than they started it — and the ones who slipped. 
 
 Winner: John Kasich 
 
 At this point, the three non-Trumps are basically kamikaze pilots. 
 
 Realistically, the GOP nomination will either go to Donald Trump outright, or be decided in a brokered convention. For the latter to happen, each of the remaining candidates has to keep campaigning and win a few more states — knowing that there's zero chance any of them becomes the nominee. 
 
 A brokered convention can pick a non-candidate as a nominee, a Mitt Romney or a Mike Pence. It can't pick a candidate who lost the primaries. 
 
 It's folly to wonder if Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz or John Kasich can win the nomination outright. They can't. Instead their debate performances have to be judged on how they affected the candidates' odds of successfully performing their role in the grand Trump sabotage plan. 
 
 Kasich's role in that plan is winning Ohio, one of the biggest remaining states and, crucially, one that's winner-take-all. If Trump wins there and Florida, the race is over. It's not clear that Kasich can pull this off, despite being hugely popular in his home state and having recently won a landslide reelection. There's only been one poll of the state since the primaries started, and it found Kasich behind Trump by five points. 
 
 So what Kasich needs to do is close that gap, and Thursday night he gave a performance that could do just that. While Cruz, Rubio, and Trump talked over each other and argued about their dick sizes and yoga and other such mishegas, Kasich stayed above the fray. He had a consistent message: I balanced the federal budget in the 1990s. I've led a successful conservative government in the swingiest of swing states. 
 
 It hasn't been a winning message nationally, but in Ohio it serves to remind voters of things they already love about Kasich. He was the adult on the stage. And while data is still sparse at the moment, Frank Luntz's focus group loved him: 
 
 The longer this goes, the higher Kasich climbs and the lower Rubio sinks with my focus group. #GOPDebate — Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) March 4, 2016 
 
 He gained more Twitter followers than his better known non-Trump rivals: 
 
 Who’s gained most Twitter followers since #GOPDebate started: 
 
 
 
 Kasich: +3,953 
 
 Cruz: +1,772 
 
 Rubio: +1,585 
 
 
 
 Trump: +7,191 — Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) March 4, 2016 
 
 Kasich still engaged in a bit of self-deception. He talked about being the nominee eventually. He declined to go full #NeverTrump and tell Floridians to vote for Marco Rubio. He committed to supporting Trump as the nominee, when pointedly refusing to do so could've made him a stronger stop-Trump contender. And there was that weird Gaddafi moment. 
 
 But he did better than Rubio or Cruz, and gave exactly the performance he needed to have a shot at a favorite son upset in Ohio. 
 
 Winner: The moderators 
 
 Reportedly, Fox News has given up on Marco Rubio. "We're finished with Rubio," the network's head, Roger Ailes, recently told a host, per a report by New York Magazine's Gabriel Sherman. "We can't do the Rubio thing anymore." 
 
 But even if the Rubio lovefest is over, the network's grudge against Donald Trump definitely isn't. They gave him by far the most airtime of any candidate tonight, but also used it to bludgeon him repeatedly. 
 
 Chris Wallace directly challenged Trump on his claim that letting Medicare negotiate drug prices would save more money every year than Medicare spends on the drugs in total. Trump's response was pathetically weak: "I'm saying saving through negotiation throughout the economy, you will save $300 billion a year." (What exactly "negotiation throughout the economy" means? Not specified.) 
 
 Megyn Kelly called up not one, not two, but three examples of Trump making contradictory statements on a key policy issue. When Trump tried to interrupt, she forced him to listen to all three. When he finally got to respond, he began with, "Well, on Afghanistan, I did mean Iraq," which is probably a bad mix-up for a would-be president of the United States to make. 
 
 When Rubio and Trump started screaming at each other about Trump University, it took a while for the moderators to get the discussion under control, but once they did Kelly didn't let Trump's claims stand, rebutting his claim that the school had an A from the Better Business Bureau (it's actually a D-). When he claimed that almost every student was happy with the education they received, she forced him to address the former students suing him claiming they demanded refunds. 
 
 Was the moderating in the debate disinterested arbitration from actors not invested in a particular outcome? Of course not. They had knives out for Trump from the beginning. But in this case, the particular political interests of Fox News and those of the viewing public converged. Trump is probably going to be the Republican nominee. He deserves more scrutiny than the rest of the field. And the Fox team subjected him to as much scrutiny as he's faced in any debate to date. 
 
 Winner: Hillary Clinton 
 
 The worst case scenario for Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders, if he were to make an improbable comeback and seize the nomination) in the general election is facing Marco Rubio. He has problems within his party, but at the end of the day he's a young, charismatic, reasonable-seeming candidate with broad party support who adds to the sense that Clinton has too much historical baggage and could potentially reduce Democratic dominance with Latino voters. 
 
 The best-case scenario is either facing a bona fide extremist who the Republican party is inclined to abandon and support half-heartedly if at all in the general election — like Trump or Cruz — or facing a Republican party in total disarray without a clear nominee until the convention in July. 
 
 It now seems like the latter is all but inevitable. The way things stand, odds still are that Trump wins outright. But tonight emphasized that if he were to lose, it would happen in the most chaotic and disruptive way possible. The window where Rubio could've won outright has closed. It's over. It's either Trump or a brokered convention. 
 
 And the forces pushing for the latter appeared divided and impotent. Kasich put up a good showing, for sure, but Rubio definitely did not, and Ted Cruz refused to even hint at support for a united anti-Trump front. The anti-Trumps are not in total disarray, but they're not exactly in lockstep either. And while they committed to supporting Trump if he's the nominee, the sheer venom of their attacks, and the broader context in which they took place, confirmed that if Trump wins he won't be taking his party with him. 
 
 I genuinely don't know what's better for Clinton: facing Trump in a 1964/1972-style race where the party establishment doesn't have his back, or enjoying a summer of Republican chaos until a compromise candidate is chosen at the RNC and the Trump voters become demoralized and stay home in the general. All of her options are good now, and the longer this mess continues the better they get. 
 
 Loser: Marco Rubio 
 
 The first nine Republican debates (save the one Trump skipped) were defined by a weird repartee between Jeb Bush and Donald Trump in which the former fecklessly tried to attack the latter only for Trump to respond with brutal insults that utterly deflated Bush. Not only that, but Trump issued his insults with relish, like the only reason he even entered the race was as part of a far-too-convoluted revenge plot against Jeb. 
 
 With Jeb out of the race, many of us feared this dynamic would vanish. We shouldn't have worried. Marco Rubio is apparently all too willing to step into the old Jeb role of Trump punching bag, and Trump is all too willing to use him as such. 
 
 This did not result in Rubio landing some real hits against Trump. It resulted in Rubio trying to attack Trump again, and again only for the debate to devolve into pointless cross talk. 
 
 Worse, Rubio's points were sometimes actively contradictory. The same guy who said this: 
 
 This is a time for seriousness on these issues. You have yet to answer a single serious question about any of this. [To Trump] Will you give us a detailed answer about foreign policy any time you're asked on it? 
 
 Also engaged in this exchange: 
 
 Cruz: You can do it. You can breathe. I know it's hard. I know it's hard. But just… Rubio: When they're done with the yoga, can I answer a question? Cruz: You cannot. (LAUGHTER) Rubio: Unbelievable. Cruz: I really hope that we don't — we don't see yoga on this stage. Rubio: Well, he's very flexible, so you never know. 
 
 Seriousness is a very important quality in a candidate, you see. 
 
 Worst of all, Rubio never got the chance to make an affirmative argument for his candidacy. Or, more accurately, he never took the chance to do so. Ted Cruz criticized Trump plenty but he also made an active argument for why he's the most compelling Trump alternative. That's bad for the #NeverTrump effort but it's a bonus for Cruz personally. Kasich, for his part, rarely did anything other than reiterate the basic rationale for his candidacy. 
 
 Rubio, by contrast, became like a weak, gutted, bizarro Trump, with all the weird venom and none of the confidence or successful self-promotion. Rubio was dead before tonight, and the debate mostly served to remind the public why. 
 
 Loser (for the night): Donald Trump 
 
 Things are looking good for Trump at the moment. He currently leads in the winner-take-all states of Ohio and Florida, the latter by a wide margin. Victories there wouldn't just make it hard for John Kasich and Marco Rubio to continue their campaigns; they'd give Trump a huge delegate lead, so big that he'd probably only have to win half of the delegates in the ensuing contests to secure an absolute delegate majority. Unless something changes in the next two weeks, the nomination is his for the taking. 
 
 There are two locations, realistically, where something could change: in the next few weeks' primaries, or in a debate. The former avenue is tricky for anti-Trump forces. If, say, Ted Cruz were to win Louisiana and Kentucky, that could halt Trump's momentum. But it's hard for Cruz to win Louisiana and Kentucky having lost Super Tuesday to Trump. It's a sort of catch-22: Cruz needs to win additional states to get momentum. But he needs more momentum than he's got to win additional states. 
 
 That leaves debates as a more plausible inflection point. We've already seen their potential to blunt momentum from past primary performance. Rubio was riding high on his third place (???) showing in Iowa … until he choked in a debate right before New Hampshire, pushing him all the way down to fifth there. It's at least possible that the same kind of thing could stop Trump in his tracks. 
 
 Sure enough, tonight's Fox News debate had Trump on the defense for most of the running time. The moderators explicitly debunked his claims on prescription drugs, and he didn't have a good defense. Megyn Kelly brought up the debacle that was Trump University, presenting some pretty damning material, and Trump scrambled to respond. 
 
 Then again, Trump spent the better part of one debate repeating left-wing talking points about George W. Bush's failure to prevent 9/11 and lies about Iraqi WMDs, and that seemingly didn't hurt him. He had a rough night tonight. It feels strange to dub him a winner. If it moved the dial anywhere, it probably hurt him. But in all honesty, Trump has gotten away with enough so far that the odds this debate deprives him the nomination are probably low. 
 
 Watch Ted Cruz call for Republicans to rally against Trump ||||| Get live updates about the Florida primary. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 _______ 
 
 Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, fighting for their political lives, relentlessly demeaned and baited Donald J. Trump at Thursday’s debate, all but pleading with Republicans to abandon a candidate with a long history of business failures, deep ties to the Democratic Party and a taste for personal insults. 
 
 Warning that Mr. Trump would lead the party to a historic defeat in November, Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz delivered their attacks with urgency, as if trying to awaken voters who had fallen under Mr. Trump’s spell. Mr. Rubio derided Mr. Trump as untrustworthy and uncivil, while Mr. Cruz bashed him for donating money to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and to other Democrats. Mr. Trump looked on with disgust, but as in their 10 previous debates, he seemed impervious and perhaps unstoppable. 
 
 At times, the face-off in Detroit also deteriorated into the kind of junior high school taunts that have startled many Republican elders but have done little to dent Mr. Trump’s broad appeal. As Mr. Trump and Mr. Rubio traded insults over their manhood, Mr. Trump recalled Mr. Rubio’s innuendo that Mr. Trump’s “small hands” correlated with another part of his anatomy. 
 
 Mr. Trump, who has boasted about his sexual exploits, insisted that nothing was small about him. “I guarantee you,” he continued with little subtlety, “there’s no problem. I guarantee you.” 
 
 The two senators repeatedly urged Republicans to align against Mr. Trump in nominating contests over the next two weeks, saying that Mr. Trump could sew up the nomination even though a majority of voters so far have cast ballots for other candidates. 
 
 “Two-thirds of the people who cast a vote in a Republican primary or caucus have voted against you,” Mr. Rubio told Mr. Trump. “The reason why is because we are not going to turn over the conservative movement or the party of Lincoln or Reagan, for example, to someone whose positions are not conservative.” 
 
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 The pleas reflected not only Mr. Trump’s advantage in the race, but also the party’s growing disquiet about the implications of nominating him. The specter of Mr. Trump as the Republican standard-bearer has long troubled both establishment-aligned and conservative leaders. But his initial hesitation to condemn the Ku Klux Klan in an interview on Sunday, and his success in seven states on Super Tuesday, have set off a new wave of anxiety that Mr. Trump could tarnish the party this year and perhaps beyond. 
 
 Still, in a striking moment, all of Mr. Trump’s rivals on stage indicated that they would support him if he became the Republican nominee. The consensus was especially unusual in the case of Mr. Rubio, who has been caustically attacking Mr. Trump as a “con man.” 
 
 While Mr. Rubio savaged Mr. Trump repeatedly on Thursday, Mr. Cruz combined his jabs with high-minded appeals to conservatives. He emphasized his support for a “simple flat tax” and a strong national defense, trying to position himself ahead of Mr. Rubio as the more competitive candidate against Mr. Trump. 
 
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 Mr. Cruz also appealed directly to Mr. Trump’s supporters by saying that their desire for a political outsider to lead the country was misplaced. 
 
 “For 40 years, Donald has been part of the corruption in Washington that you’re angry about,” Mr. Cruz said. “And you’re not going to stop the corruption in Washington by supporting someone who has supported liberal Democrats for four decades, from Jimmy Carter to John Kerry to Hillary Clinton.” 
 
 “Donald Trump in 2008 wrote four checks to elect Hillary Clinton as president,” Mr. Cruz added, turning to Mr. Trump to demand why he had done so. 
 
 “Actually, it was for business,” Mr. Trump said, before noting that he had also given to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. 
 
 Mr. Trump found himself on the defensive throughout the night, challenged by his rivals and the Fox News moderators to explain his inconsistent stands in the past. He also had to defend himself against a movement begun earlier Thursday by Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, who shredded Mr. Trump as a “phony” and a “fraud” who must be blocked from the nomination. 
 
 Mr. Trump, offered the chance to respond to Mr. Romney with harshness or with substance, chose the former. 
 
 “He was a failed candidate,” Mr. Trump said. “He should have beaten President Obama very easy.” 
 
 Mr. Cruz and Mr. Rubio, who have been grappling for ways to halt Mr. Trump’s political momentum, seemed intent on trying to bait him into losing his cool. At one point, as Mr. Cruz tarred Mr. Trump for donating to Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign, Mr. Trump tried repeatedly to interrupt. 
 
 “Count to 10, Donald — count to 10,” Mr. Cruz said. Later, in an exchange over Supreme Court nominations, Mr. Cruz taunted, “Breathe, breathe, breathe — you can do it.” That prompted Mr. Rubio to joke that his two rivals were primed for yoga, especially Mr. Trump. “He’s very flexible,” Mr. Rubio said, a quip referring to Mr. Trump’s changes in political positions. 
 
 Mr. Rubio tried to get under Mr. Trump’s skin by boring in on Trump University, the defunct education and training venture over which Mr. Trump is facing civil litigation alleging that he defrauded students. Recalling that he had spoken to “one of the victims,” Mr. Rubio said that what students had gotten in the courses was “stuff you could pull off of Zillow.” 
 
 “Why won’t you give them their money back?” Mr. Rubio asked. 
 
 Mr. Trump, who described the litigation as “a minor civil case,” claimed that almost all students who had signed up for the courses “said it was terrific,” but he quickly lost patience with Mr. Rubio. Calling him “little Marco” — a phrase he used several times — Mr. Trump noted that the senator was losing to him in Florida polls before the state’s March 15 primary. 
 
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 “The people in Florida wouldn’t elect him dogcatcher,” Mr. Trump said. 
 
 Mr. Rubio, his voice ragged, appeared frustrated at times as he repeatedly sought to sow doubts about Mr. Trump. He has been trying for months to catch fire against Mr. Trump, whom he holds in low regard on policy matters, and now the Florida primary looms as make-or-break for Mr. Rubio’s candidacy. 
 
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 “You have yet to answer a single serious question about any of this,” Mr. Rubio said, referring to Mr. Trump’s generalities on foreign affairs. As Mr. Trump responded by reiterating praise he had received from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Rubio threw his arms up and turned away in exasperation. 
 
 If Mr. Trump struggled to deflect the attacks on his character, business sense and political viability against Mrs. Clinton in the fall, he seized opportunities to reassure conservatives that he would be a forceful commander in chief. Questioned by the moderators about his past advocacy for torture and for killing the families of terrorists, Mr. Trump stood firm and argued that “we should go tougher than waterboarding.” Pressed about whether military officers would carry out such orders — killing terrorists’ family members would violate the Geneva Conventions — Mr. Trump offered a boast. 
 
 “If I say ‘do it,’ they’re going to do it,” he said. 
 
 At another point, in a rare concession from Mr. Trump, he acknowledged that he was “changing” one of his positions in the highly charged immigration debate and was now open to offering visas for highly skilled foreign workers. He also lamented that foreign citizens “go to the best colleges” in America and “as soon as they are finished, they get shoved out,” and said he was “softening the position because we have to have talented people in this country.” 
 
 While his shift could appeal to some business leaders and moderate voters he would need in a general election, his campaign also issued a statement after the debate saying he would “institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exception.” 
 
 Mr. Trump’s shifting positions have been a target for months, but during this debate, his rivals received help from the Fox News debate moderators. They played a compilation of video clips in which he was depicted changing his mind on issues like the war in Iraq. Mr. Trump was then asked directly if he had “a core.” 
 
 “I have a very strong core, but I have never seen a successful person who wasn’t flexible,” Mr. Trump said. 
 
 One of the most anticipated face-offs of the night was between Mr. Trump and the moderator Megyn Kelly, who infuriated the candidate with her aggressive questions at the first Republican debate in August. Ms. Kelly and Mr. Trump breezily engaged each other on Thursday night, but Ms. Kelly was pointed if polite in her questioning. 
 
 Both Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz repeatedly challenged Mr. Trump to release the full transcript of his meeting with The New York Times’s editorial board earlier in the year. BuzzFeed reported this week that Mr. Trump, in off-the-record comments, had told the newspaper that he was willing to soften his hard-line immigration views. 
 
 But Mr. Trump stood his ground, saying he would “never release off-the-record conversations.” Pressed by Mr. Cruz, he shot back: “I’ve given my answer, lying Ted. I’ve given my answer.” 
 
 The fourth candidate, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who has positioned himself as the positive-sounding and seasoned executive in the race, largely stuck to that strategy. But Mr. Kasich, who is lagging far behind Mr. Trump and the other candidates, struggled to leave a mark in the debate. ||||| It was only minutes into Thursday night’s Republican debate when the front-runner hit a new low. 
 
 "Look at these hands. Are these small hands?” Donald Trump said, referring to an attack leveled by Marco Rubio. “He said if they're small, something else must be small, and I guarantee you there’s no problem.” 
 
 In an often bewildering campaign, the front-runner discussing the size of his penis was still shocking. If many viewers chose to tune out after that incident, they would have been forgiven. Those who stuck around were treated to a seesaw debate, which featured some of the most probing questions asked of the candidates so far but also included heated exchanges of childish insults and incoherent shouting. 
 
 Trump’s flexibility with the truth is well known. More interesting is Trump’s flexibility with policy, for which the evening proved a key test. Will voters care about the specific stances that Trump takes and his fidelity to them, or do they care more about his attitude? 
 
 Trump came in with a target on his back. After a strong performance on Super Tuesday, the latest conventional wisdom is that the last chance for the Republican establishment and other candidates to stop Trump is on March 15. But it was the moderators—Fox News’ Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, and Trump’s old nemesis Megyn Kelly—who really made Trump squirm the most. 
 
 He was pounded by Kelly and Ted Cruz over what he said to The New York Times editorial board about immigration in an off-the-record conversation. (He refused to ask the newspaper to release tapes or transcripts.) Chris Wallace demanded to know how he’d close the federal budget and noted places where Trump’s math—on federal departments he’d close, or on savings from Medicare rate changes—doesn’t add up. Kelly pressed him on Trump University, the glorified real-estate seminar over which he’s being sued. Trump claimed the Better Business Bureau’s grade for Trump U. had been raised from a D- to an A, which Kelly pointed out was bogus. Trump got repeatedly rattled. 
 
 If voters care about Trump’s ideological consistency, he’s in trouble. Over and over again, Trump said he’d changed his mind on things: He no longer supports the assault-weapons ban. He’s had a change of heart about H1-B visas and now thinks they’re a good thing: “I’m changing.” When Kelly showed a series of clips in which Trump had flip-flopped—on whether to keep U.S. forces in Afghanistan, on whether to accept any Middle Eastern refugees, and on whether George W. Bush lied in the lead-up to the war in Iraq—Trump essentially pleaded no contest. He even described himself as “meek” on the Iraq question, hardly a word you’d associate with his campaign so far. 
 
 Instead, Trump built a case for compromise. “You have to show a degree of flexibility,” he said. Trump’s theory of the Republican campaign has been that voters want someone who’s saying what he feels and that they don’t really care much about fidelity to ideology. So far, the evidence has borne him out, but the contradictions and flip-flops highlighted on Thursday do threaten his authenticity. 
 
 Much of the debate, however, was less substantive and revealing. There were repeated stretches of shouting. Candidates called each other liars. They interrupted each other. Trump kept calling Rubio “this little guy” and “Little Marco.” (Weirdly, Rubio played along, calling Trump “Big Donald.”) The candidates tussled at length over what the polls show—who is winning the primary and about who could win the general election. Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich all understandably deplore Trump’s obsession with polls, but they are unable to change the terms of the debate. In the midst of this horror show, Ted Cruz (of all people) emerged briefly as the voice of reason: “Is this the debate you want playing out in the general election?" Almost certainly not—either for Republicans or for unaffiliated voters. 
 
 The funny thing about Trump’s rough performance was that no one else did especially well, either. Kasich disappeared for long stretches, popping up only to give capsule history lessons on national politics in the 1980s and 1990s and Ohio politics in more recent years—he was involved, in case you hadn’t heard. Cruz delivering a middling performance, with much of his emphasis on the fact that he’d beaten Trump in a few states. That was an easy jab for Trump to parry: After all, Trump had won more. Rubio was hoarse and seemed shrunken, chastened, and at sea. He tried to interrupt Trump to mix things up, but was shouted down by Trump—and several times cut off by the moderators, who insisted he let Trump answer his questions. 
 
 “Is this the debate you want playing out in the general election?” 
 
 Trump was incoherent on trade: “I say, ‘Free trade, great,’ but not when they’re beating us so badly.” He reprised his call for the United States to employ torture in the war on terror. Wallace pushed Cruz hard on his plan to “abolish” the IRS—who would collect even the flat tax he supports? Cruz was forced to make some concessions. Rubio struggled to explain why he would send a large ground force to fight ISIS in Syria but not Libya. John Kasich appeared to back an Iraq-scale occupation of Libya. 
 
 Although the debate was held in Detroit, it took 80 minutes before any questions were posed about the lead-poisoning crisis in Flint. Rubio somehow managed to praise Governor Rick Snyder’s response, making him perhaps the only person in America willing to do so. Cruz attempted to lay Detroit’s struggles squarely at the feet of local Democratic politicians, sidestepping the national and global contexts of deindustrialization. Kasich was lucky enough to sidestep any questions about lead poisoning in his own state of Ohio. 
 
 The Republican Party appears on the edge of collapse, and the raucous debate in Detroit did nothing to erase that impression. But did it do anything to stop Trump, the agent of much of the internecine chaos? The forum occurred as some of the smartest GOP strategists argue that the party must try to wrest the nomination from Trump, even if it results in the party’s demise. Donors are spending millions in an effort to derail the front-runner, uniting under the banner “#NeverTrump.” Yet in the closing question of the night, the moderators asked Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio whether they would support Trump if he were the nominee. They have called him a con man, a liar, and unqualified for the presidency. Yet when the question came, each said they would. If they can’t do better to stop Trump than they did Thursday, that question will cease to be a hypothetical.
– The newly narrowed GOP field of Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich went at it again Thursday night. Here's a sampling of some of the post-debate analysis: Cruz had "his best debate of the primary season," writes Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, showing "prosecutorial chops when making the case that Donald Trump was neither a real conservative nor someone who could win the White House." Kasich also did well, but Cillizza places Trump ("took real body blows" and showed "wafer-thin understanding of policy") and Rubio (on a "kamikaze mission against Trump") in the "losers" category. "Cruz the winner. Rubio solid & feisty at times, but role seemed reversed w/ Cruz from last debate," tweets Guy Benson of Town Hall. "Kasich hit his marks. Trump was Trump." Kasich won by staying above the fray and improving his position "in the grand Trump sabotage plan," which might involve a brokered convention, writes Dylan Matthews at Vox. Rubio, meanwhile, flailed at Trump so much he failed to make "an affirmative argument for his candidacy." He "was dead before tonight, and the debate mostly served to remind the public why." At the Atlantic, David A. Graham isn't very charitable to any of the candidates. "The funny thing about Trump's rough performance was that no one else did especially well, either," he writes. Cruz gave "a middling performance, with much of his emphasis on the fact that he'd beaten Trump in a few states," while Rubio "was hoarse and seemed shrunken, chastened, and at sea" as he tried to out-shout Trump. When Kasich surfaced, it was to spout "capsule history lessons." But this surely qualifies as good news for Trump: "In a striking moment, all of Mr. Trump's rivals on stage indicated that they would support him if he became the Republican nominee," notes the New York Times. "The consensus was especially unusual in the case of Mr. Rubio, who has been caustically attacking Mr. Trump as a 'con man.'" As does this from Eric Bradner at CNN: Yes, Trump struggled on substantive issues and came under heavy attack, but "what else is new?" he asks. "None of the debates so far have changed the trajectory of the race."