Presidential debates, even those with 10 candidates held some 15 months before Election Day, do matter. …
In the 2016 opening round in Cleveland, the political question is: Who among the lower nine will bell the cat by most directly challenging the surprise front-runner, billionaire Donald Trump? This is tricky territory, because in a multi-candidate contest when candidate A delivers a hatchet job — even a believable one — on candidate B, the eventual beneficiary is almost always candidate C, D, E, F or G. CONT.
Mark Shields