Republican presidential candidates participate in a presidential candidate debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015.Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon whose questionable claims about being offered a full scholarship to the elite West Point army academy and lurid tales of threatening his mother with a hammer and knifing a childhood friend, emerged from Tuesday's Republican televised debate unscathed."First of all, thank you for not asking me what I said in the 10th grade," Mr. Carson said to applause and laughter, adding: "People who know me know I'm an honest person."
And with that, Mr. Carson, a darling of the evangelical right and joint front-runner with property magnate Donald Trump, deftly sidestepped the media furor over his veracity. "I have no problem with being vetted," Mr. Carson went on. "What I do have a problem with is being lied about."
He then went on the offensive, accusing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton of lying and getting a soft ride from the left-leaning media.
The partisan crowd cheered and neither the moderators nor his rivals on stage ever returned to the issue of Mr. Carson's credulity-stretching episodes from his early life in Detroit.
It was a night of survivorship. Mr. Carson dodged the bullet about the veracity of his own biography. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush delivered a better performance than his shambolic efforts of previous debates, perhaps enough to re-energize his bid to follow his father and brother to the Oval Office.
At one point, Mr. Bush savaged Mr. Trump for treating global crises "like a board game," after the bombastic billionaire had voiced delight that Russia was bombing Syrian rebels.
"That's like playing Monopoly or something. That's not how the real world works," Mr. Bush said.
But there were no knockout blows and no breakthrough moments in the fourth Republican debate, which was hosted by Fox Business News and The Wall Street Journal at the Milwaukee Theater in Wisconsin.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favourite, suffered a memory lapse reminiscent of the gaffe that crippled Texas governor Rick Perry's campaign four years ago, when he forgot which three government agencies he vowed to scrap. Mr. Cruz's version was to list the five federal agencies on his chopping block and then to name the Department of Commerce twice, forgetting Education was also on his hit list. No one pounced on the lapse.
At one point, as Mr. Trump denounced the new Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, he seemed to suggest that it would primarily benefit the Chinese, who will "come in as they always do through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone." To which Kentucky Senator Rand Paul interjected, accurately: "China is not part of the deal."
Carly Fiorina, the only woman in the race, continued to display a wide-ranging command of issues and annoyed some of her rivals with repeated interjections. But the former Hewlett Packard executive has yet to translate effective debate performances into significant gains in the polls.
If there was a significant difference in Tuesday's debate, it was that the on-stage field had been reduced. Winnowing the unwieldy Republican field of candidates for president is supposed to be the right of registered party members in state primaries, but the early cull for the 2016 cycle has been left to national polls and fractious televised debates.
Only eight made the cut for Tuesday night's main confrontation in Milwaukee, with two of the former top-tier relegated to the earlier, far-less-watched undercard debate. Ohio Governor John Kasich and Florida Senator Marco Rubio were the other presidential hopefuls to remain in the top eight.
Cut were New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who joined former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in the earlier debate. Meanwhile, long-shots George Pataki, the former New York governor, and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham were cut even from the undercard.
In the main debate, immigration emerged as one of the few issues to continue to sharply divide the field. Mr. Trump repeated his vow – widely popular among many Republicans – to round up and expel the estimated 11 million people unlawfully in the United States, even if they have children who are citizens, hold jobs and have lived upstanding lives for decades.
Ohio Governor John Kasich said: "Come on, folks. We all know you can't pick them up and ship them across, back across the border. It's a silly argument. It is not an adult argument. It makes no sense."
Mr. Bush, who is married to a Mexican-American, joined the attack. "It is just not possible," he said of Mr. Trump's mass-deportation scheme. "And it's not embracing American values. And it would tear communities apart. And it would send a signal that we're not the kind of country that I know America is."
An overnight poll of Republican voters who watched the two-hour debate found Mr. Trump the winner, picked by 28 per cent of respondents, followed by Mr. Rubio with 23 per cent, Mr. Cruz, 16 per cent, and Mr. Carson, 14 per cent. Mr. Paul and Ms. Fiorina followed with 7 per cent, Mr. Bush, 3 per cent, and Mr. Kasich, 2 per cent.
The next debate will be Dec. 15 in Las Vegas.