Of course if/when Trump is the nominee the same cast of characters will revert back to the norm and find every possible fault with him and none with Hilary-but that's how things are. On the other hand Trump, and the social media, and the man in the street is now circumventing the Establishment and the elitist media so all their machinations may be as useless against Trump as they have been too date.
Here's a roundup of praises
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Mathew Yglesias goes full Trumper at Vox
Donald Trump won the debate Floating above the fray, Trump was perfectly positioned to grow even stronger just days from the beginning of voting.
Trump was all over the debate without being at the debate
Trump himself, meanwhile, escape unscathed from the attacks. There's now only tune anyone in the field is singing, and it's a tune that he wrote — with a message that he delivered on his own terms in a setting of his own choosing. It was a bravura debate performance. One of the best I've seen from any candidate in any election. And he wasn't even there."
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Maxwell Tani at Business Insider and HERE
"Donald Trump dominated the start of the Fox News debate without even being there"
Without attending the Thursday-night Fox News Republican debate amid a high-profile boycott, Donald Trump dominated the early conversation.
Donald Trump wasn't onstage at the Thursday Fox News Republican debate.
But his presence was certainly felt.
He was, quite literally, right down the road, hosting his own event. He dominated the social-media conversation. And from the minute the debate started, Trump's rivals were forced to confront Trump's absence amid a high-profile boycott.
"For one night, he beat Fox News," wrote NBC senior political editor Mark Murray on Twitter Though Trump was mentioned and referred to occasionally throughout the debate, he dominated the online conversation surrounding it.
Halfway through the debate, Twitter said 37% of the conversation about candidates was dedicated to Trump. Cruz placed second with 18%.
Trump also garnered the most searches in Google.
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The Observer Ross Barkan
Donald Trump Crushed Fox, But Can He Win Iowa?
It was another big night for The Donald. It was also a reminder that when it comes to stealing a show, no one does it better than The Donald.
Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee joined him on stage after their appearance on the debate’s undercard. It was apropos, in a way: the two men, nominally rivals to Mr. Trump in the GOP primary, won Iowa in 2012 and 2008 respectively.
Each were now grateful to bask in the glow of Mr. Trump, the ultimate spectacle, with only Mr. Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, making a show of being a competitor by edging to the side of the podium so photographs wouldn’t catch him behind a Trump sign.Mr. Trump will be well on his way to winning the nomination, and perhaps permanently rewriting the rules of campaign politics and press coverage.
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Maeve Reston CNN
Donald Trump throws a grand old party
No one ever really doubted that Donald Trump could pull off a major counter-programing feat -- even when competing with a GOP debate that was expected to draw millions of viewers.
He did it Thursday night, dazzling a crowd of hundreds of enthusiastic supporters by announcing that he had raised more than $6 million for veterans in one day -- $1 million of it from his own checkbook. "We love our vets," he said.
In a somewhat extraordinary move for someone who has reveled in taunting his rivals, he invited Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum -- two candidates who had been relegated to an earlier undercard debate -- to join him on stage to speak about veterans issues. While appearing generous, it was also politically savvy maneuver given that the two men were the respective winners of the past two Iowa caucuses, but stuck in the bottom-tier this time around.
Huckabee and Santorum are still well-liked and admired by core Republican voters here in Iowa, even if their campaigns have failed to ignite this time. And their presence on stage with Trump could go a long way toward negating the criticisms from Trump's rivals like Ted Cruz, whose allies have claimed that Trump will be punished by Iowans on Monday for skipping the debate stage.
Trump supporters who waited hours in the cold to see him roundly disputed the notion that he would see any attrition in his support in Iowa, where he has led in recent polls.
In interviews, many voters here said the controversy was yet another example of Trump bucking the establishment -- a trait that has endeared him to them from the beginning -- and that they were proud of him standing up to Fox News.
Ernie Ratcliffe, an army veteran who served two tours in Vietnam, drove in from Kansas City for the rally, scoffed when asked for his thoughts on Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's contention that Trump skipped the debate because he was afraid of taunts or difficult questions from the Fox moderators or rival candidates.
"Donald Trump isn't scared of anything. He's not scared of absolutely anything," said Ratcliffe, who has signed up with his wife to call New Hampshire voters on Trump's behalf next week. "Donald J. Trump said he was going to do this and he's done it. He's a man of his word."
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Frank Bruni New York Times
G.O.P. Debate Stars the Ghost of Donald Trump
In the hours before it, CNN could speak of almost nothing but Trump. It kept flashing footage of the fan-packed rally he had orchestrated just a couple of miles from the debate, to compete with it.
“There are thousands who have waited hours throughout the day,” the anchor Erin Burnett marveled.
When her colleague Anderson Cooper then interviewed a CNN correspondent at the debate itself, the first question he asked her was about how the debaters were likely to adjust to a Trump-less event.
And here I am, writing about Trump, Trump, Trump.“His shadow is looming large, even though he is not there,” Cooper said to the correspondent, then he turned to the network’s panel of political analysts, who talked about Trump, Trump, Trump.
It’s impossible not to. It would be irresponsible not to, because believe it or not, hate it or love it, he’s the Republican campaign’s great and sobering lesson to the country, telling us things about its discontents that we didn’t properly understand. He’s the campaign’s undeniable force of gravity, exerting a pull on everyone and everything around him.
What the debate made clear is that Trump is all fox.
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Michael Scherer TIME
Everything Changes When Republicans Debate Without Donald Trump
The truth of the seventh debate is that what took place on that stage over those two hours did not reflect the reality of either the Republican nomination fight or, at least for the moment, this country. That could be found a few miles away, where Trump had gathered his own multitudes at a separate venue in Des Moines, with his own network cameras, and a couple other candidates, in protest. The Republican frontrunner, rather than fading, has outgrown the circus he spoiled and set off on his own.
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The Hill "Winners And Losers" Niall Stanage
With just four days left before the Iowa caucuses, how did it all shake out?
WINNERS
Businessman Donald Trump
The GOP front-runner was taking a big gamble by declining to participate in the debate. If one of his rivals — especially Ted Cruz — had hit a few pitches out of the park, Trump’s absence could have seemed like an act of gross political negligence.
That didn’t happen. Cruz offered an indifferent performance. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio did better overall but struggled in one of the debate’s most memorable moments — a prolonged exchange over immigration reform.
In a more general sense, too, the debate was simply less compelling without Trump — love him or loathe him.
Co-moderator Megyn Kelly described the mogul in the debate’s opening moments as “the elephant not in the room,” and his absence loomed over the entirety of proceedings.
That will be just fine with him.
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