Color me seriously underwhelmed with the “undercard” debate. Moderators Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum began with a series of semi-insulting “why are you here?” questions. As oddly hostile as those questions were, Jim Gilmore and George Pataki didn’t exactly dispel the skepticism greeting their bids. Apparently Pataki believes his work with a law firm after leaving office is just that extra bit of experience he needed before running for the Oval Office.

Then we did a round of “what do you think of Donald Trump?” questions that seemed to be a heavy-handed effort to set off some fireworks. To her credit, Carly Fiorina swung hard and hit it far: “I didn’t get a phone call from Bill Clinton before I jumped in the race. Did any of you get a phone call from Bill Clinton? I didn’t. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t given money to the foundation or donated to his wife’s Senate campaign.”

But again, this is the first chance these candidates get to address a national audience, and within the first 20 minutes, they’re all asked to talk about another guy.

#related#Time limits make sense for a crowded stage, but with seven candidates, was there really a need to limit candidates to one-minute answers, with a little game-show bell ringing after 60 seconds? The debate is more than an hour! Then again, as usual, several of the candidates felt the need to shoehorn their slogans, talking points, and other pre-rehearsed lines into their answers, whether or not they were pertinent to the question. Oh, and the occasional laugh lines without laughter and applause lines without applause because there was no audience. It made for awkward visuals for those of us at home and it felt like the energy and pacing for the candidates was off-key.

According to Perry adviser Avik Roy, that was the GOP’s decision (presumably meaning the Republican National Committee). Why?

The policy questions were better. We learned President Bobby Jindal would instruct the Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service to investigate Planned Parenthood. We learned that Lindsey Graham would send troops to Iraq again.

“Can you inspire a nation?” is not a good question. Do we expect any candidate to say, “No, no I can’t. Thank you, and good night”?

“What words would you use to describe Hillary?” was another fairly useless question; I know it will surprise you that all of the candidates offered harsh criticism.

It’s silly to declare anyone the “winner” of this, but since Republicans are probably least familiar with Carly Fiorina, and she certainly came across as crisp and poised, she probably did herself the most good. I get the feeling if Perry had been on the 9 p.m. debate stage, he would have gone Bruce Banner on Trump and we would have seen real fireworks. My man Bobby Jindal was himself — which I like, but apparently only a few percentage points’ worth of other Republicans find most appealing. Santorum handled it all like an old pro, which I guess you could say he is.

Lindsey Graham seemed strangely lacking in energy, but he continued his policy-heavy, effective campaign to be America’s next secretary of defense.

If Pataki and Gilmore’s invitations to the next debate got lost in the mail, I don’t think a lot of tears would be shed.

By the way, did we just all agree that it’s “ISIL” now? It’s not “ISIS” anymore?