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Quick Take on the GOP Debate
I’ve just watched a 90-minute undercard debate followed by a three-hour mainstage debate. I never want to hear the terms “birthright citizenship,” “shining city on a hill,” or “yuge” ever again. However, as your faithful servant, I will offer my quick takes on the winners and losers of tonight’s debate.
Winners
3. Gov. Chris Christie
The normally brash New Jersey governor was thoughtful, self-deprecating, thorough, and seized his moments with aplomb. He ranks in third place for my winner’s list.
2. Sen. Marco Rubio
Wow, does he shine at these things. Utterly unflappable, polished without looking plastic, and connects with the audience on a heart level. A second solid performance.
1. Carly Fiorina
“Lady Liberty” wins the night in a walk. Coming into the primaries I wondered why she was even running. But Carly exudes gravitas. She’s compelling. Even when I don’t agree with her, I want to hear her out. That’s political star power.
Losers
3. Gov. Scott Walker
Walker didn’t do anything wrong, but he didn’t distinguish himself either. With his numbers plummeting in Iowa and his money-men getting nervous, he really needs to step up and soon. (I almost chose the somnambulent Ben Carson for the three-spot, but his fans seem to like his low-key style.)
2. Gov. John Kasich
In the first debate, Kasich seemed to be seizing the squishy moderate crown of Nerf from Jeb. But the Ohio governor spent most of the second debate defending Democrats’ programs and failures. Out-of-step with the national mood, not to mention the GOP.
1. Donald Trump
Wishful thinking on my part? Perhaps. But the frontrunner always enters a debate with the most to lose. Standing amid the accomplished GOP field with Reagan’s jet as a backdrop, The Donald looked petty, small and out of his element. He improved as the night wore on, but I’m wondering who sat through until the end.
Beyond the candidates, the biggest loser of the night was CNN. What a shameful, disorganized, and unserious presentation. The majority of questions were directed to Trump. Those that weren’t, were questions about Trump. And often when another candidate responded, even on a non-Trump topic, CNN had a split-screen showing Trump’s dramatic reactions to their answers.
CNN’s intention was not to inform voters or discuss ideas, but to toss scorpions in a bottle and watch them fight over side issues. I’m quite shocked that the normally excellent Jake Tapper and Hugh Hewitt agreed to this silly format.
UPDATE: Interesting Twitter stats…
Published in GeneralTwitter’s debate data pic.twitter.com/JkVwk9y6Mo
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) September 17, 2015
Rubio’s pro-amnesty antics are a deal-breaker.
The Ricochet poll begs to differ.
I don’t think so. His numbers will start to grow. He walked away from the Gang of Eight bill. He’s always advocated securing the border. Ann Coulter’s silly attacks and her blind allegiance to Trump won’t make a difference in the next few months. He communicates better than all the other candidates (with the exception of Carly who can do quite well) on the stage. Never underestimate the power to get your message across and offer solutions that are real and not overblown or empty promises. Trump is a really poor communicator who is evasive, changes the subject, gets confused, fixates on himself, makes wild promises without any substance to back them up. Would be interesting to know if he’s read a single book on foreign policy…or history. He comes across as a functional illiterate. Other than that he’s a swell guy.
I think Rubio did fine except for shrinking to confront Trump on his lack of seriousness or knowledge on international and military policy. I felt Ben Carson’s performance was weak, and will harm his standing. It’s hard for me to understand how otherwise intelligent people could witness Trump’s performance in the debate and see anything but someone way overmatched.
Actually I think Rubio was quite smart not to mention Trump by name. Now it’s difficult for Trump to tweet that Rubio attacked him because he actually chose not to. I think Rubio and his prep team knew that a better tactic was to say that the Commander-in-Chief better be prepared on Day One because that may be the day that the President is tested. It’s clear that Rubio was speaking about Trump and his fumbling performance on Hewitt’s radio show…but by putting it in these terms it also applies to someone like Carson. Fiorina, by the way, was a CIA consultant with top secret security clearance who is obviously consulting with some military experts on force structure. So, I think she’s in a different category.
I don’t expect him to see a bump in the polls. I’m thinking long-term. I think his unfavorables might have gone down. He helped himself a little and the biggest threats to him were held in check.
Though Corbyn’s victory in Britain gives me pause, I very much doubt that all the long-term ground rules of our politics have suddenly gone out the window because Republicans bitterly distrust their current leadership, as though that has never happened before. Neither Trump, Carson, or Fiorina are likely to be ultimately serious challengers. Their current dominance means we’re heading towards a flavor-of-the-month race, and that helps Bush as it did Romney.
Rubio got a freshman swirly in the Senatorial toilet on the gang of eight debacle. He’s learned his lesson. He stated tonight that his immigration position is no comprehensive bills, secure the border first, then allow the normal political process and the will of the people to decide what to do about the illegals already here. This is a sensible position to have. Like all politicians, we’ll have to hold him to it.
I agree. It was an obvious dig at Trump.
Cruz looked weak in his handling of Trump, though — weak and calculating.
I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if the candidates had handled Trump this way last time. Maybe he needed the time to expose himself, and the Hewitt interview. But maybe they shouldn’t have played so nice before.
What struck me was how absolutely silent Trump was after the 1st 10 minutes or so, when the conversation got to be much more substantive. It seemed for over 30 minutes you didn’t hear from him. He even intimated why, later on; he’s been doing deals, not boning up on foreign policy.
Second, he felt the need to back down. When Carly called him on the whole “face” kerfuffle, he came as close to apologizing as Trump is capable of doing. The whole “you’re beautiful” thing came off not only as insincere; it came off as weak. On some level, he knew he couldn’t defend what he said without sounding like an idiot, so he thought some cheap flattery might end the exchange. It did, but in a way that opens the door for a lot of Trump supporters to question their allegiance.
It was a strange phenomenon; Jake Tapper was not good, & kept trying to cut Carly off while directing questions to Bush, Trump, etc.. Yet, the debate was more substantive, and more revealing, than the Fox debate. For a large chunk of time, Tapper got rolled by whomever felt like it; Christie, Huckabee, even John Kasich. Hugh Hewitt only had the gag removed for a short time before Tapper stuck it back in.
All in all, a night that showed that the GOP has several potential Presidents on the stage, and it’s easier to imagine that Donald Trump isn’t one of them.
Sorry, but I don’t agree with your calculation. I think Bush is in a world of hurt. A lot of his big money backers may start to consider Rubio. I do agree that Trump and Carson in the next few months will start to lose support. I think support starts to consolidate around Rubio and Fiorina. Of course, it would really help if some of the others throw in the towel – Pataki (not that he has any support to speak of), Graham (ditto), Rand Paul (whose campaign is going backwards), Walker (whose campaign has stalled), Huckabee (who won’t gather any momentum), Kasich (isn’t conservative enough), Cruz (is waiting for The Donald to exit but depending on when that happens Cruz may have waited too late).
As for Fiorina, as impressive as she is, and she is impressive, I just don’t think she ends up at the top of the ticket. Do I think she would be a good president? Yes. But I don’t think she fades entirely. It’s more logical to assume that if she’s not offered a VP spot then she’s offered Secretary of State. There are other prospects for a VP choice as well. I really do like the idea of Tom Cotton as a VP choice. After 8 years as VP he would be a natural for a presidential run and he has an impressive résumé.
Very well said. Great encapsulation of what happened.
Oh, don’t apologize, I hope you’re right. If “establishment” support for Bush can be shaken and moved to Rubio, you may be. I haven’t seen any hard evidence of that yet. I’d be happy to see Rubio as the establishment candidate.
But those problems are sort of baked into Bush’s candidacy already. He didn’t make them worse tonight.
I don’t think Rubio wants the taint of being labeled “establishment”. As he said tonight he was the anti-establishment candidate when he challenged Charlie Crist.
And I’m sorry about apologizing. Please accept my apology. Won’t happen again. :-)
Jindal was clearly the best of the four, and he makes a good attack dog. I don’t think he has a chance to win the top spot but he’d make a great Veep.
Who’s the real winner?
Me, for not watching.
I think one of her most impressive characteristics is that, when she gets her briefings, I suspect she makes sure she understands them. She wasn’t just voicing phrases her consultant told her. I’m guessing she actually now has learned what a “fleet” consist of, and how the commissioning or decommissioning of various ships affects battle readiness and has even been briefed on the different roles sea power may or may not have in future warfare. All BHO know is “US military power bad. Must make it smaller and weaker.” His “people” are telling him how to do that.
She does need to have her people rewrite her stump line for support of Israel and opposition to Iran. She said earlier today that 50% of R primary voters don’t even know her name, so I’m hoping that’s why she used the “2 phone calls” line. If she keeps using it, that would be a “tone deaf” red flag for me.
Hey, aren’t we all waiting for the Ann Coulter “It’s still all the Donald. He was the big man on stage!” tweet –?
Maybe she missed the debate.
Here’s another nit on the style difference between Rubio and Cruz. On the woman for the $10 bill question — Rubio replies quickly and decisively: “Rosa Parks”. Done.
Cruz agrees but then has to lecture everyone on who Rosa Parks was, why she was important…blah, blah, blah…started to sound like pandering to the black community.
It’s like a car salesman who just won’t shut up about the car’s features when you’ve already have made up your mind to buy the car.
Why do people care about what is trending on Twitter? It seems like a rather useless metric.
The Donald cares whether The Donald is trending on Twitter. So, it is obviously very important.
The $10 and $20 bills should be left alone. The left’s defacing of America’s history and culture needs to stop.
However, the difference is that Trump is in first place or always close to first place.
Ron Paul was never in first place much, unless it was some obscure state where his followers took over a caucus or something.
If you have a “poll” where people can, without restriction, vote over and over again, then you’re not getting a true reflection of anything other than a cult following willing to repeatedly vote for their candidate. Your witnessing obsessive behavior. Not much else.
If you want to make an argument that Trump outperformed all the other candidates on stage tonight, feel free to make it. But that’s not what virtually everyone on Ricochet and elsewhere saw tonight.
Even Ann Coulter isn’t boasting of a triumphant performance by the “big man” Trump. Instead she’s upset that there were too many references to Israel (in language and with an anti-Semitic tinge that would violate the Ricochet CoC). She’s whining and not lording it over everyone like she did after the last debate. Obviously, she feels that more attention should have been given to her (and The Donald’s) pet issue and that Jews or the continued existence of Israel aren’t very important because, after all there aren’t that many Jews in America. Because you see it’s not about principle or what’s right…it’s only about a naked grab for votes. Just as for Trump supporters repeatedly voting on the Drudge poll – it’s not about the truth, it’s about deception and making something look better than what it was.
Trump looked out of his league tonight because he was out of his league. That’s why he was so quiet much of the time. By his own admittance he hasn’t studied foreign policy issues because he’s been busy doing business deals. Really? When is he going to start studying up? On the first day of his presidency? After a few months of being in office?
I’d have given Ben Carson mad props if he’s said this in response to the notion of putting Rosa Parks on the currency (NSFW language):
I’d hazard a guess that Trump actually won the debate, based upon the complete lack of headlines says things like “Yuuuuge failure for The Donald.”
Trump needed to be taken down in a yuuuuge way, such that those dimbulb Trump fans could have their noses rubbed in his failure forevermore.
A sign of that, by the way, would have the unwillingness of people to vote for Trump over and over on that Drudge poll.
But they still do.
Not only, but I remain completely mystified by the weird hatred Trump seems to generate from certain Republicans, since the party has never been willing to go after the present occupant of the White House with anything remotely approaching the hostility.
Barry plainly still hasn’t managed to comprehend foreign policy or much of anything else, despite years to practice- or his problem is something even worse– but the harshest words the GOP has ever had to say about him were that he was a nice guy in over his head.
It seems to me that the party should save some of its venom to be used against the left, instead of its own supporters.
Or else it will face a yuuuge failure of its own, next year.
Eeyore, why do you think Carly is tone deaf by using the two phone calls line? What do you think she should emphasize?
This confirms my choice not to watch these things where the leftwing hate media are in charge. Every Ricocheteer who did should put a little asterisked note at the bottom of all subsequent political posts indicating that he/she was foolish enough to let CNN play with his/her mind.
I was wondering that, too. In a crowded debate with little time for explanation, I thought the line worked.
Liz, that was why I asked. It is a staple of her stump speech. I’ve heard it dozens of times. But I think it works, and she gets a good reception to it.
2 winners, then. I made dinner, called Mom, watched Longmire, and zonked out.
Also, I’m tired of hearing about “inexperienced” regarding Fiorina and politics. That’s exactly what I want. I don’t want lifetime losers slopping at the public trough of power extending their extended slop for another slop term.
You know what political experience has bought us? $18 trillion in debt with unfunded liabilities at multiples of that number. The big Democrat challenger’s idea to fix everything that’s wrong in America? Double the debt with new spending that cannot possibly be supported by existing revenue streams.
Trump is onstage. Ridiculous.