CLEVELAND -- Heading into the first Republican presidential debate on Thursday night, much of the talk among the hundreds of journalists and pundits who gathered here centered around whether Donald Trump would tone down the bombast in favor of projecting a kinder, gentler, more “presidential” image.
He did not.
From the moment the debate began, Trump did nothing to mitigate the imperious deme that has driven his rise to the top of the pack in the Republican polls. But Trump’s no-holds-barred approach this time may have done himself more harm than good.
In the very first question of the event, Fox News host and moderator Bret Baier asked the 10 leading candidates whether any would decline to pledge to support the eventual Republican presidential nominee next year.
Trump was the lone candidate to raise his hand.
“I fully understand,” Trump said, as Baier tried to emphasize the extent to which not discounting a possible third-party run could hurt him with Republican voters, who are eager for their best chance to win back the White House. “If I’m the nominee, I pledge that I will not run as an independent."
As some in the crowd at Quicken Loans Arena cheered and others booed, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul took the opportunity to jump right into the fray with a direct dig at Trump.
“If he doesn’t run as a Republican, maybe he supports [Hillary] Clinton,” Paul said in a rhetorical punch that his campaign’s chief strategist, Doug Stafford, later told HuffPost was unrehearsed. “He’s already hedging his bets because he’s used to buying politicians.”
That exchange set the tone for a feisty evening, as the top candidates in an average of national polls engaged in a debate that was often testy, occasionally illuminating, and almost always entertaining.
There's no doubt that Trump generated the most one-liners and characteristically personal jabs (“only Rosie O’Donnell,” he replied to moderator Megyn Kelly when she asked him about degrading comments that he had made about women). But it was difficult to decipher who did himself the most favors in the long run.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush -- considered the establishment frontrunner in the race -- didn’t exactly stand out, but the noise that Trump has brought to the race may continue to make it more difficult for a viable alternative to Bush to emerge.
“I’m going to have to earn this,” Bush said at one point, acknowledging his shaky frontrunner status that has nonetheless remained intact. “Maybe the bar is even higher for me, and that’s fine.”
In one of the most memorable exchanges of the night, Paul and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- the two candidates whose views on privacy rights and national security are diametrically opposed -- duked it out on the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program.
"I want to collect more records from terrorists and less from innocent Americans,” Paul said.
That line set Christie off. “That’s a completely ridiculous response,” replied Christie, who -- like Paul -- has struggled to gain any traction in the race. “Senator, you know, when you’re sitting in a subcommittee just blowing hot air on this, you can say things like that.”
With thinly-veiled disdain, Paul shot back, tying Christie’s post-Superstorm Sandy embrace of President Barack Obama into a charge that the New Jersey governor backs the Democratic administration’s policies.
“I know you gave him a big hug, and if you want to give him a big hug again, go right away,” Paul said.
Christie had one more retort left in him. “The hugs I remember are the hugs I gave to people who lost loved ones on Sept. 11,” he said, decrying Paul for delivering speeches on the Senate floor on the issue and then posting videos of them on the Internet to raise money for his presidential campaign.
The early part of the two-hour debate featured a lengthy exchange on immigration policy, during which Bush was asked whether he stands by his comment that people who come to the United States illegally general do so as an “act of love” for their families.
“I believe that the great majority of people coming here have no other option,” Bush said. “They want to provide for their families. But we need to control our border.”
Moderator Chris Wallace then turned to Trump, asking him about his infamous comments in his announcement speech about Mexican migrants being “rapists.”
True to form, the New York real estate tycoon and reality TV star didn’t give an inch.
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be talking about illegal immigration, Chris,” Trump said. “This wasn’t a subject that was on anybody’s minds until I brought it up in my announcement.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich -- the last candidate to make the cut for the debate -- used his home-court advantage to powerful effect throughout the evening, as he generated several resounding bursts of applause from the Cleveland audience and appeared fluid and at ease behind the podium.
Kasich can certainly use whatever boost he might receive from his strong performance, as he mounts an uphill challenge against Bush for the party establishment mantle, particularly in the New Hampshire primary, the nation's first.
Instead of going at Trump directly, as a couple of the other candidates did, Kasich sought to kill him with kindness.
“Donald Trump’s hitting a nerve in this country,” Kasich said. “And for people who want to tune him out, they’re making a mistake."
Trump’s pomposity aside, none of the candidates on stage committed noticeable gaffes, and contenders like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker appeared determined to make their cases in a competent, non-flashy manner.
“The voters of Wisconsin elected me last year for the third time because they wanted somebody who aimed high, not aimed low," Walker said in defending his economic record.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was similarly reserved.
“This election cannot be a resume competition,” Rubio, a first-term senator, said in defending himself. “It’s important to be qualified, but if this election is a resume competition, then Hillary Clinton’s going to be the next president.”
Ben Carson -- a famed neurosurgeon who rose to political prominence in part through his cable news savvy and willingness to throw rhetorical bombs -- took a soft-spoken approach and appeared to suffer from a lack of opportunities to leave his stamp on the debate.
At one point, Carson expressed exasperation that he wasn’t being called on as much as the other candidates, but he did generate a big response from the crowd for his good-natured closing statement, in which he noted that he was the only candidate in the field who had separated Siamese twins. Carson also made a personal appearance in the spin room following the debate.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee delivered one of the most memorable lines of the night when he was asked whether transgender people should be allowed to serve openly in the military.
"The military is not a social experiment,” Huckabee said. “The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things.”
A former college debating champion, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was perhaps the most polished candidate on the stage and appeared to unleash a slew of rehearsed lines to strong effect, even as he never appeared to take the spotlight.
“We will not defeat radical Islamic terrorism so long as we have a president unwilling to utter the words, ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’” Cruz said in one of his more memorable lines.
Cruz’s spokesman, Rick Tyler, told the press that Cruz had come off as “a statesman” during the debate.
Trump, on the other hand, was unapologetic in sounding like something else entirely. It remains to be seen whether he erred in not adjusting his pitch on a night when he could have might have done more to sound like something more than a rabble-rouser.
"We don't have time for tone,” Trump said when asked about the level of discourse he has brought to the campaign. “We have to go out and get the job done."
For more GOP debate coverage, visit our liveblog.