Trumpageddon Iowa Debate!

But whether or not Trump shows up (and if you don’t think there’s a chance he’ll swerve at the last minute, you’re crazy), tonight has the potential to be an inflection point in the race. There will be seven (or eight) candidates, but only three of them matter at this point: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. No one else is competitive in Iowa and only three of the trail pack even have a theory for New Hampshire.

But those theories aren’t all that convincing. Chris Christie’s momentum in the Granite State was reversed after he was taken apart in the last debate. Jeb Bush is trending backwards (again). John Kasich seems to have found all of Jon Huntsman’s GOP-hating 2012 supporters-never forget, Huntsman got 17 percent of the vote in New Hampshire-and is surging. Which is impressive, since he hasn’t had a single good moment in the campaign. But unlike Christie and Bush, Kasich has no next-step were he to finish second or third in New Hampshire. His candidacy is a dead-end.

So it’s Trump, Cruz, and Rubio tonight, whether or not Trump shows up.

Donald Trump: In a way, I almost agreed with Allahpundit earlier in the week that Trump would be smart to skip the debate and hold his own mega-rally, principally because it would minimize his exposure to the counterattacks that are coming. And they are coming.

For the first time in the race, there are two skilled candidates-Cruz and Rubio-with incentive to expose Trump. One of the strange dynamics of the race so far has been Trump’s mostly-unhindered candidacy. (In a weird way, it’s reminded me of Richard Hatch’s run in the first season of Survivor, where Hatch essentially skated to the endgame.)

More important, though, is that Cruz and Rubio both seem to understand how not to attack Trump. The problem is not, as Jeb Bush foolishly charges, that Trump’s ideas “aren’t serious.” Trump’s supporters aren’t crazy; their concerns are serious; and their fears about American decline are well-founded. No, the problem is Trump the man. A guy who goes-along to get-along in New York City politics can’t be trusted not to do the same thing in Washington. Just take a look at what Trump says about getting along with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Take a look at where the consummate log-rollers Bob Dole and Trent Lott are placing their bets.

As Ross Douthat suggests, the way to attack Trump is to show his supporters that he’s a huckster and that they’re his marks. Comments like Trump’s “When I’m president, I’m a different person” and “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters” are problematic for just this reason. The stories in Matt Labash’s archive are good fodder, too. As is Ben Sasse’s point about the trustworthiness of a man who brags about bedding married women. As is the revelation that Trump’s campaign spokeswoman has a history of claiming that white Republicans are racists, that Christians “can’t handle the truth,” and lots of other lovely sentiments.

In a presidential administration, personnel is policy. But the real danger for Trump here is that Cruz and Rubio will convince some of his supporters that he doesn’t actually care about them; that he actually has contempt for them; that he’s playing them for fools.

So like I said, I can understand Trump not wanting to stand on stage tonight with Cruz and Rubio dialed in and ready to light him up. His downside at this point in the race is pretty substantial.

But on the other hand, if he does decide to show up to debate, his upside would be yuge, too. If Donald Trump wins Iowa (which seems at least a 50-50 proposition) and then follows with a win in New Hampshire (which seems highly likely) then he will be in a very strong position. Not as strong as Bush 2000, because Bush had both establishment support and high favorables across the party. But strong nonetheless.

And tonight’s debate would be Trump’s chance to seal the deal with Iowa voters. Depending on which polls you believe, Trump is either comfortably ahead or neck-and-neck with Cruz four days before the caucuses. (For whatever it’s worth, I believe the former.) If he came onstage and crushed Cruz-by which I mean, gives some marginal Cruz supporters enough reason to switch allegiance-he would have helped himself a great deal.

So in many ways, skipping the debate is the safe choice; a hedge against the possibility of effective attacks.

In another sense though, Trump is, for the first time, making himself a hostage to fortune. He’ll have no control over the debate, no chance to defend himself. Frankly, he’s been good enough in debates that I’m surprised he doesn’t trust his own abilities at this point.

But the biggest problem may be how weak it looks to actually skip a key debate. Trump was happy to roll with the CNBC clown-show, but objects to Megyn Kelly on grounds of bias? That doesn’t scan. The only reason not to show up is because he’s playing defense and trying to sell it as offense. This seems like a miscalculation; or at least a substantial risk.

The only analogue I can think of in recent political memory is Sarah Palin’s decision to abdicate her post as governor of Alaska. At the time, plenty of people tried to justify her move as being cagey and proactive. But the truth is, it ended her political career because voters don’t like quitters. They like fighters. Trump can say that he’s the one really fighting by changing the rules of the game and refusing to capitulate or yadda, yadda, yadda. But people know the difference: He’s ducking a fight. Trump, of all people, should understand that.

When Fox started trolling Trump about the debate, they suggested that if The Donald can’t handle Megyn Kelly, he’ll never be able to handle Vladimir Putin or the Ayatollah.

But the more important point would be this: If Trump bails on a debate at the first sign of pushback from entrenched interests at Fox News, which is basically on his side, how in the world can you trust that he’ll go to the mattresses on immigration? Building a wall on America’s southern border will require a political fight unlike anything seen in our lifetimes. It will make the passage of Obamacare look simple, civilized, and orderly.

Now, maybe the wall is a goal worth fighting for, a hill worth dying on. But unless you’re in the business of Trumpian apologetics, it’s very hard to look at this episode and be 100 percent sure that Trump actually has the sand to carry that fight.

Ted Cruz: It might not look like it, but Cruz is in a spot of trouble. For the last month or so, a victory in Iowa had been more or less priced into his stock. Now he’s facing a margin call.

In a sense, his slide in the polls might turn out to be helpful. If Cruz wins Iowa now, it’s a comeback and he’s the dragon-slayer. It shows that he could take Trump’s best shot and come back to beat him. He could say, in the best sense, Donald Trump thinks I’m nasty? He has no idea how nasty I can be. See you in South Carolina, Slick.

On the other hand, if Cruz loses Iowa-or worse, loses decisively-it’s a real blow to his entire strategic vision. Maybe he can still compete in the SEC primary, but where does he go after that? If he can’t beat Trump in Iowa, where the demographics and culture are friendly to him and his organizational advantage is maxed out, where can he beat Trump?

So Cruz has big downside tonight. He can’t afford to lose any ground to Trump. If so, his entire campaign is in jeopardy.

But his upside is big, too. Not only will he be totally prepared to dissect the frontrunner like a surgeon, but he might have an empty podium to slap around. If Cruz wins Iowa, tonight will mark the turnaround point.

Marco Rubio: Don’t be fooled by the “3-2-1 strategy” that some of Rubio’s people were selling last week. He isn’t going to win South Carolina. But neither does he need to. As I’ve been saying for weeks on end, Rubio’s task is to finish ahead of Christie, Bush, and Kasich in New Hampshire. That’s it. If he can’t do that, then it’s a two-man race with Cruz, and Trump. If he accomplishes his goal in New Hampshire, the rest of the field winnows almost immediately and Rubio shoots up to near-parity with the Big Two.

His upside tonight is located in his opportunity to prosecute the case against Trump. Why go after Trump and not Kasich, who’s the threat in New Hampshire? Or Cruz, who stands as the other contender in Iowa? Because Rubio has a chance to beat expectations in Iowa and then use that momentum to slingshot past him the next week in New Hampshire. (If it’s true that Kasich is relying on lefty voters for his surge, those folks may well switch to Sanders in light of the Iowa result on the Dems’ side.) And hurting Cruz in Iowa might help Rubio down the line, but does nothing to help him in New Hampshire.

Rubio’s downside risk, as always, is immigration. He cannot afford, ever, to look like voters can’t trust his conversion. He’s handled the issue well throughout the race, but the one time Cruz scored points on him was at the December 15 debate. Have a look at what happened to Rubio’s polling right around that week.

What’s more, Rubio is in the strange position of not needing to win any of the early states. His electoral tests won’t come until after the field has consolidated. That’s a luxury. The price of this luxury, however, is that he has the smallest margin for error of the three contenders.

There is, by the way, an interesting argument in Rubio’s camp over whether he’d be helped or hindered by a Trump win in Iowa. You can see it both ways: If Trump wins Iowa, Cruz is greatly weakened and the race could become Trump-Rubio a bit faster. On the other hand, if Cruz wins Iowa, Trump is suddenly not so invincible, and a longer, three-way race becomes more probable. It’s unclear which scenario would be better for Rubio’s prospects. But my instinct is that it’s the latter.

This is the first debate of the cycle where all three contenders have significant upsides and downsides. It’s a high-stakes night. And we’ll know who the winner was for sure on February 1.