The 24 million Americans who watched last week’s initial Republican presidential primary debate were not all Republicans. A hundred Democrats, give or take, gathered at the Governor’s Park sports bar in Denver to view what they hoped would prove an embarrassing clown car competition. If it weren’t for the closed captioning on multiple flat screen TVs it would have been impossible to understand a word of what the candidates were saying. The noise level was deafening as the largely millennial crowd quaffed microbrews in rapid succession, while avidly following their Twitter and social media feeds for reaction and updates. The night’s blood sport, however, was tracking the Donald. Democrats may view him as a fool, but Trump promised to serve as a useful fool and he would not disappoint them.

The Minor League All Stars

Few of the Colorado Democrats watched the 3 p.m. debate in an empty auditorium among the seven candidates who failed to break through in the pre-debate polls to land a slot in the prime time event. Hosts Bill Hemmer and Martha Maccallum allowed the happy hour candidates to recite from their resumes and recycle campaign talking points. With the exceptions of Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry, these candidates appeared satisfied to simply introduce themselves to voters. Perry has improved mightily since his catastrophic “Ooops” moment during the 2012 campaign when he failed to recall the federal agencies he was promising to eliminate. Alas, the former Texas governor may have slipped well past his expiration date, although he did show the kind of chops it takes to serve in a presidential cabinet.

It was Fiorina who dispensed with biographical detours to slap around frontrunner Trump, after acknowledging he had “tapped into voter anger.” She made it clear her opponent remains Hillary Clinton, not the all-male second tier Republicans she found herself debating. By Sunday morning Republican polls were rating her performance as best in either debate, although respondents were likely judging this on the basis of second hand reports. Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki and Jim Gilmore appeared to have approached as close to the spotlight as they ever will, collectively failing to show the charisma it would take to win a personality contest against a turnip.

Bullpen Strength at Fox News

It is no secret that Fox News would like to see the Republican nominee who delivers the acceptance speech next summer at the same Cleveland arena that hosted last week’s debate move on to win the general election in November. Therefore, suspicion existed that its interview panel would spend the evening tossing marshmallow softballs to the ten Republican candidates. Not to worry – Brett Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace fired consistent fastballs, high and inside, to each candidate until the final, embarrassing query whether anyone was having private communications directly with God about their campaign. The Colorado Rockies would benefit from a pitching staff with comparable skills.

Right out of the box, all the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they were unwilling to pledge their support to the eventual Republican nominee. Only Trump indicated a reticence to make such a commitment. The Democrats at Governor’s Park howled with glee. A third party challenge from Trump would pretty much assure them a 2016 cakewalk. The raucous crowd in Cleveland booed loudly; setting a precedent that would dog the Donald through the remainder of the debate. Rand Paul jumped in, unbidden, and smacked him around for his narcissism. Placed center stage as the frontrunner, Trump was asked by Kelly to explain his frequent nasty comments about women, including calling them slobs, fat pigs and worse. Once again, Democrats went nuts. The frontrunner was obviously off balance. His quip that he only said this about Rosie O’Donnell, which did get a laugh, was countered by Kelly, who quoted from his reality show, “The Apprentice”, where he once remarked about a contestant that it would make a “pretty picture to see her on her knees.” Trump attempted to deflect the entire line of questioning by claiming that America’s biggest problem is political correctness. He then pointed out that his indiscretions, if they ever had occurred, were only in response to criticisms first aimed at him. Then, he argued, he was obligated to defend himself, as Kelly would discover in the days that followed.

It was beginning to appear the debate might turn into a UFC cage match. The watch party Democrats were hooting and hollering like they were attending a frat party bonfire. But the room temperature slowly began to come back down to earth. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and John Kasich, who enjoyed a home field advantage before an Ohio crowd that knew him well, fielded tough questions with considerable skill. Their conservative positions might not please Democrats, but it was hard to dismiss them as the rantings of the unhinged. In fact, it seems true that the Republican candidates, taken as a group, present a deep bench to voters. Rubio even worked in a jibe about the Democrats inability to identify a single qualified candidate. Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Paul and Chris Christie had their moments as well. There were several surprising observations, including Huckabee’s attack on Washington’s political class “that dances for the donor class,” and Bush’s concern that “too many people are suffering today,” echoed by Kasich’s discussion of “people living in the economic shadows.” And, of course, Trump’s braying that “our reporters are dishonest, our leaders are stupid, our politicians are stupid.” Paul jumped in with “You do not project strength from bankruptcy court!”

Dividing the Nation We Want to be Great Again

At various points during the debate virtually every candidate bemoaned the fact that Hillary Clinton, President Obama or the entire Democratic Party is deviously intent on dividing the country. Uniting the nation seemed to be defined by the debaters as unflinching agreement with Republican policies. And these conservative policies were trumpeted as the sure-thing formula for reestablishing American pre-eminence. But there is a distinctly martial (Republicans are from Mars?) tone to their proposed restoration of greatness: boots on the ground, drones in the sky, quaking Iranians scurrying before American might.

Voters do seem frustrated, annoyed that “Government isn’t working for them,” as noted by Kasich. Bernie Sanders has touched this same nerve among Democrats. But Democrats’ definition of American greatness sounds far removed from the bellicose “take names and kick butts” approach touted by Republicans. At my table, Rachel, a millennial immigrant to Colorado from Florida, defined greatness as “a permanent job with decent pay and benefits.” Her boyfriend chimed in with, “America is great when we send our military to build Ebola hospitals in Africa. We were great when we built the Panama Canal and put a man on the moon.”

The next Republican debate, on Sept. 16, arrives the day before the Congressional vote on the Iranian nuclear agreement. What should a great country do?

— Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former state legislator. He can be reached at mnhwriter@msn.com