Ross Douthat hopes for a Republican primary campaign where “the real action takes place in Rubio v. Jeb on education, Jeb v. Walker on immigration, Christie v. Paul on civil liberties, Rand v. the field on interventionism, Kasich v. the field on Medicare, and so on down a longer list.” Judging from last night, there won’t be a whole lot to that first debate.
Do a Ctrl-F for “Common Core” in the transcript of the debate to read the exchange. Bush says that educational standards should be set by the states with no federal involvement, direct or indirect; Rubio worries that the Department of Education will make Common Core into a mandate; then Bush repeats that states should be able to have their own non-Common Core standards. Both of them are saying that the federal government should be hands-off on questions of standards and curricula. So what’s the big disagreement here? Neither of them even says at any point in this exchange that they have one.