It was a bad GOP debate for Trump

Now we find out whether Donald Trump really is teflon. Because if the Republican presidential field doesn’t take him out after Thursday night’s debate in Detroit, it’s likely not going to happen.

That’s how bad the evening was for Trump.

He was hammered almost from the start — not only by senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, but also by Fox News’ aggressive questioners and their slides and charts.

They hit Trump hard on his clothing business making their products overseas and his Florida resort hiring workers from abroad. They said he was a con artist, not a conservative, and knocked his failed businesses, campaign donations to Democrats, changing views, Trump University, lack of specific foreign policy prescriptions, and refusal to release a tape of an off-the-record interview with The New York Times’ editorial board.

Trump responded calmly at first — perhaps trying to seem more presidential after his big Super Tuesday wins two days earlier. But Trump being Trump, the name-calling came soon enough, and his rivals responded. One sickening tirade had Trump and Rubio mockingly calling each other Little Marco and Big Donald, with Trump later referring to Cruz as Lyin’ Ted — continuing the trend of these debates getting seamier as they go.

No one except Ohio Gov. John Kasich sounded remotely presidential, which leads to the question of which brand took more of a beating — Trump or the Republican Party?

But will any of it matter? Did Cruz and Rubio elevate themselves at all in comparison to Trump, at least in a way that will translate into a seismic change in primary votes? Can Kasich – who started this campaign so far back and so comparatively unknown — capitalize on the growing realization that he clearly is the most sane and most competent and most mature one in the bunch?

It seems unlikely. But this has been the most unlikely of campaigns since Trump descended from Trump Tower last year and went all in.

And in that vein, in between the debate bombast, we started to see a different Trump in Detroit, one beginning to look ahead to the fall general election despite a growing GOP establishment effort to derail his campaign.

He started the debate by backing off his evisceration of 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who had attacked him earlier in the day. He added a touch of civility, Trump-style, by saying he was taking back his labeling of Rubio as a lightweight. “He’s not really that much of a lightweight,” Trump said. And he responded to attacks on his tendency to change his beliefs by saying a leader and negotiator needs to be flexible and must respond to changing facts and circumstances.

In the end, Cruz, Rubio and Kasich clenched their teeth and said they would support Trump if he was the party’s presidential nominee. And Trump said he’d support one of them if he didn’t get the nod — even though, he added, they don’t deserve it.

It was uncomfortable kumbaya.

But there’s plenty of time left for all of them to be flexible.