David Yepsen

His campaign has got all kinds of growing pains and it doesn’t make sense that he would spend any kind of time going out of the country.

It's very important for Trump to bounce back strong. The sense of his inevitability is one of his strengths, if he looks weak, others will pile on and some may be tempted to leave him.

Perception is everything in politics, and to the political community Rauner came up on the short end of a fight with Madigan. So he looks weak and Madigan looks strong.

Each has got some image issue they need to fix, can Trump start acting more presidential without losing what makes him so appealing? Can Jeb continue the flicker of momentum he has coming out of New Hampshire? Have Rubio’s bruises healed? Can Carson show something that puts a spark back into his campaign? Has Kasich got more than his New Hampshire game?

Everybody has to avoid making mistakes, if you mess something up in this debate you're going to have almost no opportunity to correct it.

The stakes are very high for her here. She has got to win. If she does, fine. If she doesn't, then it becomes a much different game in New Hampshire, it's really Sanders' only hope to get something going is to upend her here.

And Rahm Emanuel understands that probably better than anybody el... by David Yepsen

And Rahm Emanuel understands that probably better than anybody else.

I think Democrats are going to be pleased, he's not going to go far enough to quiet the critics. This was no 'day of infamy' speech.

Jeb is trailing in the polls, he's got nothing to lose. by David Yepsen

Jeb is trailing in the polls, he's got nothing to lose.

Hillary Clinton has been doing well in Iowa but Hillary Clinton people there are rattled by the Bernie Sanders crowds which by Iowa standards are quite large, the polls look good for Hillary Clinton now but we are six months away and I've seen things change rapidly. The drip, drip, drip, drip, is causing some concern.

He will have to answer questions about Iran and nuclear weapons and Afghanistan and the size of the (U.S.) military and all those things.

It's never bad to be the most conservative guy in a Republican primary fight - he could win the nomination that way. The question is can he do so in a way that does not alienate moderates?

I think Republicans have got to try something. It’s pretty hard for them to win the White House if current Hispanic voting trends continue. (Bush) has some unique abilities to appeal to those voters and he’s going to maximize them.

I think it will resonate with Republican voters, there's real concern about what Putin is really up to.

I think Cruz has generated some excitement in Iowa, and he is a new face, but it is going to be a while before he closes the sale with a lot of activists.

It's a crowded field to begin with and it's almost as if, within the Republican contest, there are some early sub-primaries: Who is going to be the establishment candidate? Who is going to be the social conservative candidate?

If he’s not exciting them with speeches and rhetoric the way Barack Obama did, he’s got to do that personally and spend time with caucus-goers and primary voters and really work to overcome some of the problems he has as a result of his being the third Bush to run.

If you run for the American presidency and don't make it, but run a credible effort, you have enhanced your stature on the national stage, politics is a game run by risk takers and most of them fail. But enough of them succeed. You wind up in a better place.

The political calculation has to be that this is more of a plus for a candidate for president than a minus.