CBS Republican Debate: Live Coverage

Bush did make a reference to mooning in an interview! “I could drop my pants. Moon the whole crowd. Everybody would be aghast, except the press guys would never notice.”

Someone — maybe us! — needs to do some further reporting on how these debate crowds are chosen. Tonight’s audience in South Carolina seems to be unabashedly pro-“establishment.” But remember that the state’s two senators, and by extension much of its political machine, are behind Bush and Rubio.

Trump is still leading in South Carolina. But the state has a strong cohort of evangelical voters, and I’ve spoken to some who find Trump’s language and ad-hominem attacks offensive. The polls will show whether Trump’s numbers go down, and the exit polls from the South Carolina primary will also let us know if evangelical voters broadly reject or embrace Trump.