WRAPPING UP THE TRUMPLESS DEBATE, Steve Green writes:

Trump really was supposed to be Godot, the man who never showed up but everyone obsessed over anyway — Kabuki Theater of the Absurd, as I called it the other day. But other than some awkward “Oh my God, that was supposed to be funny?” comments from Ted Cruz, Trump’s absence wasn’t much… present.

Rubio seemed enlarged by that absence, Cruz seemed diminished by it.

Everyone else played their parts the same way they’ve played them through all the previous debates. That’s for good and for ill, but mostly for naught. No matter your (or my) personal preference, the GOP doesn’t seem likely to nominate a Bush, a Carson, a Christie, or a Kasich.

I hate to talk about the polls, because I hate to talk about the polls — but the time has come to do just that.

The most recent figures from Iowa show that with historical turnout, either Cruz or Trump wins in a squeaker. If Trump manages to revolutionize Iowa turnout — and I don’t dismiss the possibility — then he wins in a blowout.

But it doesn’t feel like Cruz helped himself tonight. If anyone did, it was probably Rubio, but that’s probably too little, too late.

This is where I should mention that out of seven competitive GOP Iowa caucuses, Iowa voters have picked the nominee only three times — and only once has the nominee gone on to win the general election.

You watch enough of these things, and you get a feel for the ebb and flow of the candidates, but also for the moderators. And my final thought tonight is that Fox wanted to host a Donald Trump circus, and failing that, tried to force the circus format on the remaining candidates.

It didn’t work. If you’ve been following these drunkblogs, then you’ve seen debates hosted by networks that were more biased, but you might not have seen a debate as weird and awkward as tonight’s.

At the last debate we saw Trump at his grownup best. Tonight, he wasn’t there at all, and it was as though Fox tried to make up for it by being as outlandish (if that’s the right word) as Trump at his adolescent worst.

And it just didn’t work, for me or for the candidates.

How did it work for you?

Let us know in the comments.