{"id":13174,"date":"2016-02-25T23:11:30","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T23:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13174"},"modified":"2016-02-25T23:11:30","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T23:11:30","slug":"political-bloodbath-on-tap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13174","title":{"rendered":"Political bloodbath on tap?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/rs-trump-cruz.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-12398\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12398\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/rs-trump-cruz-300x158.jpg\" alt=\"rs-trump-cruz\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/rs-trump-cruz-300x158.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/rs-trump-cruz-768x403.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/rs-trump-cruz-1024x538.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/rs-trump-cruz.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Five men are set to stand on a debate stage tonight in Houston.<\/p>\n<p>Two of them are likely to unsheathe the long knives to use on each other.<\/p>\n<p>A third man, the frontrunner, also is going to be a target.<\/p>\n<p>Candidates No. 4 and 5?\u00a0 I just hope they get to get a word in edge-wise.<\/p>\n<p>Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio want to elbow each other out of the way to become the Republican Party &#8220;establishment&#8221; alternative to Donald J. Trump. For Cruz, the Houston debate has been called his &#8220;last stand,&#8221; or kind of an Alamo reference.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio faces other obstacles, with polls showing him trailing Trump in his home state of Florida.<\/p>\n<p>I continue to root for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who&#8217;s the fourth-place candidate &#8212; but the one who exhibits the most executive and legislative government experience. He&#8217;s a grownup, but in this election cycle, political adulthood isn&#8217;t seen as a plus. Too bad.<\/p>\n<p>The fifth man on the stage? I sense that this likely\u00a0will be Dr. Ben Carson&#8217;s last bow on the national political stage.<\/p>\n<p>So, let&#8217;s watch the debate tonight and see how much &#8220;blood&#8221; gets spilled.<\/p>\n<p>My sense is that it&#8217;s going to be a serious spectator-friendly event.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five men are set to stand on a debate stage tonight in Houston. Two of them are likely to unsheathe the long knives to use on each other. A third man, the frontrunner, also is going to be a target. Candidates No. 4 and 5?\u00a0 I just hope they get to get a word in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13174\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Political bloodbath on tap?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[588,1424,1941,1948,6001,2537,2892,4537],"class_list":["post-13174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-ben-carson","tag-donald-trump","tag-gop","tag-gop-debate","tag-houston-debate","tag-john-kasich","tag-marco-rubio","tag-ted-cruz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13175,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13174\/revisions\/13175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}