Fox News picked the winners and losers of the first Republican primary debate before it even began. The network selected the top-tier of candidates for primetime and only gave seven others a shot at an earlier, smaller debate.
The candidates on stage early Thursday evening in Cleveland were former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former New York Gov. George Pataki, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore.
The candidates were tough to tell apart at times -- every candidate said their first day in office would be spent undoing President Obama's executive orders -- but each candidate did his or her best to separate from the pack.
Here are the top takeaways:
Fiorina's big night
The consensus, at least online, was that Fiorina came away the best of the bunch thanks to a calm, measured approach and her consistent attack on Hillary Clinton.
Since the debate, Google search interest in Fiorina has rivaled interest in Trump. pic.twitter.com/fMYO69o7fT— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) August 6, 2015
Fiorina focused on her status as a Washington outsider while stressing her conservatism. “I'm not a member of the political class," she said. "I'm a true conservative who can win this job and do this job."
.@CarlyFiorina has the biggest spin room scrum pic.twitter.com/5JlLOcSNuU— David Chalian (@DavidChalian) August 6, 2015
Carly Fiorina just might have started the biggest comeback in Cleveland since one night when the Heat were down 27 ...— Tim Reynolds (@ByTimReynolds) August 6, 2015
Winner: Fiorina Loser: My inbox, from all of her staff emails— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) August 6, 2015
And when it came to the phrase of the night, "cyberwalls," Fiorina had this to say:
Carly Fiorina targets "cyber walls" at the JV #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/zdiM1oAGb0— Mashable News (@MashableNews) August 6, 2015
As Vox noted, the term "cyberwall" apparently refers to "privacy protections and other limits on information flows that impede terrorist investigations" and may have been coined by Fox News moderators.
Graham falls flat
Lindsey Graham catapulted onto the political stage with his starring role in the impeachment proceedings for then-President Bill Clinton. The folksy Southerner became a cable news darling quickly after musing publicly whether the Lewinsky scandal was Watergate or Peyton Place.
The same bombastic style has given Graham a starring role in any number of Congressional debates since he was elected to the House in 1995. But the version of Graham that showed up to Thursday’s debate showed little of the same down-home folksiness or characteristic spunk.
Instead, Graham appeared stilted, monotone and at times entirely disconnected from the action around him. While his political speeches have never exactly been optimistic -- memes emerged after his campaign launch about the doom and gloom vision of America he painted in his first speech as a candidate -- he looked downright sad on Thursday, leaving some reporters to muse whether or not he’d been counseled to be more subdued than usual.
Lindsey Graham feels a little bit off tonight. It feels like he's told to be far more sober than usual.— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) August 6, 2015
For a politician who soared to national attention on the wings of his own personal swagger, his flatness was surprising. What’s more, Graham has consistently polled poorly since jumping into the presidential race.
One thing’s likely: tonight’s performance won’t help those numbers.
Trump steals airtime
Even though he's not on stage until the primetime debate, Donald Trump got more airtime in the first 15 minutes of this opener than some of the candidates who were actually on stage in Cleveland. After the introductory segment for each candidate, the first question asked the candidates was about Trump. That not only showed how large he looms over the entire GOP field but also how high regard Fox News holds for Trump.
Perry called Trump "more celebrity than conservative" and Fiorina was the first to associate Trump with the Clinton name, the Republican version of kryptonite, by referencing the phone call between the GOP front-runner and former president Bill Clinton.
Competing with Trump in the category of airtime for non-attendees was the GOP holy ghost, Ronald Reagan. The Gipper's mentions reached their peak when Santorum declared himself "a child of Ronald Reagan."
Santorum: "I am a child of Ronald Reagan."— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) August 6, 2015
Top target: Hillary
It was immediately clear that each of the candidates onstage considers Hillary Clinton's nomination a foregone conclusion, referencing her repeatedly as their future opponent in the general election.
“To all the Americans who want a better quality of life, don’t vote for Hillary Clinton” - Sen. Graham #GOPDebate— Mashable News (@MashableNews) August 6, 2015
The only other Democratic candidate that received a mention was Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and even that was simply an aside by Jindal.
In closing statement, Fiorina says Hillary Clinton "lies" twice: "Hillary Clinton lies about Benghazi. She lies about emails." #GOPDebate— Chris Donovan (@chrisdonovan) August 6, 2015