Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is facing off against 10 of his rivals at the Reagan Library tonight for the second GOP presidential debate, and CNN has promised verbal fisticuffs. None of those candidates should take the bait, argues Dana Milbank at The Washington Post. Ignoring and punching back at Trump have only fueled his rise in the polls, "because his opponents are following the wrong script," Milbank says. "They treat him as if he were a conventional candidate, and not the schoolyard bully he has been acting like."
In fact, Milbank adds, the other, non-Trump GOP candidates and Republican leaders " would do better going to StopBullying.gov, the website for a public-service campaign run by the Department of Health and Human Services." If you replace every mention of "child" or "children" with "candidate" or "candidates," you get some pretty sage advice for Trump's opponents on-stage and off:
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