Last night, of course, was the 76th Republican debate of the season, made memorable by the moronic decision by Donald Trump to be elsewhere. Under no calculus on earth does this make him look good or offer an advantage. Not surprisingly, many candidates leveraged this by claiming Trump can’t even handle a Fox moderator, let alone the presidency. As for any counter-evidence of this, well, we’re still looking.

Sorry, Trump fans—you may be legion, but your guy’s an idiot. Or worse, exactly what his critics accuse him of.

Anyway, there has been a plethora of words written about who had their best night. Some say Sen. Rand Paul, who finally got a chance to say more than 10 words. Some say Sen. Marco Rubio, who was able to demonstrate his deep passion for America. Others say it was clearly Gov. Jeb Bush, who had the luxury to show himself as a three-dimensional candidate. Still others insist Sen. Ted Cruz, who was able to lay out actual policy issues without having to be interrupted by the braying of a Manhattan-area jackass.

The reality is much simpler: all of the candidates had their best night so far, simply because they could finish sentences, did not have to wait for a question while Trump was given three softball questions, and were able to utilize consensus without Trump’s liberal cuckoo clock chiming out a need to back up and explain what conservatism even is.

Was there a winner? Some say Cruz put forth the best framework of his policy ideas on healthcare and taxes. Others say Bush finally covered every base without stumbling into foul territory. We just spotted a piece claiming Paul nailed his explanation of constitutional consistency. And a lot of the average-Joe viewers at the end said Rubio completely awed them.

Yeah, there was a winner: Fox News, who allegedly cleaned up in the ratings. Yes, without Donald! They not only asked intelligent questions, but went so far as to show video clips of Cruz and Rubio seemingly contradicting themselves. If anything, Fox News gave each candidate a sense of what the Democrats were going to use against them: Cruz and Rubio flip-flopping, Dr. Ben Carson’s zero-depth splash pool of foreign policy, Gov. Chris Christie’s inconsistency, and Gov. John Kasich’s understanding of a universe beyond Akron.

Cruz, for one, did not look good arguing facts and rules with moderators, and his half-hearted joke about it served him very poorly. Fox News assumed its viewers were not the gape-mouthed zombies of CNN, and threw some seriously hard questions out there, for the most part. And despite that, all of the candidates did very well. Even Carson, on whether a theoretical Russian invasion of Estonia would constitute a triggering of Article V in the NATO agreement.

How amazing it would be if other networks treated Republicans and Democrats this way. For one thing, Clinton and Sanders would be out of the race by this point.

However, way too much time was spent on immigration policies of Rubio and Cruz, and whether either of them actually flipped their positions on amnesty. Without answering the questions, both provided good speeches on the subject. But Christie captured the Czar’s attitude perfectly when he, in mock exasperation, demanded to know why it’s so freaking difficult to admit you changed your mind.

Imagine if Rubio said this on the debate: “The fact is, I was an eager freshman senator who felt he had a lot to contribute on the subject of immigration. I think you can understand why the son of immigrants who became successful Americans would want to reform the entire process. Unfortunately, in my zeal to make things right, I made the mistake of trusting my Democrat colleagues on the Gang of Eight bill, who in turned stabbed me in the back and pushed for amnesty. I should never have trusted them, especially after how they once betrayed Ronald Reagan himself the same way on amnesty. Yes, I can see how people lost respect for me with that bill, but the fact is that I will never make that mistake again.” Rubio has actually said similar things to this, but for some reason he can’t bring himself to say it on live television. No, it’s not exactly true, but it would ameliorate a lot of distrust voters have for him on this point.

Or if Cruz had simply said “There’s a popular perception that I’ve been inconsistent on this subject. But the full record shows that I didn’t change my position so much as the discussion changed around me. I had to adapt my message as the wording in the bill changed because I so believed the bill was right—until it wasn’t the right bill anymore. If you want to show the full story, you have to cover the whole history of that bill to see why I would need to re-craft my wording. And I could have done a better job of explaining that, even at the time. But here I am, right now, telling you I stand by what I said at each instance for every clip you showed here tonight.” For good or bad, Cruz did explain himself after the debate, and Megyn Kelly acknowledged his longer answer to her was correct and consistent with the facts. Shame he didn’t explain it during the debate so easily.