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CBS Republican Debate: This Just Got Real
Well, folks, here we are again. Is this the ninth or the tenth Republican debate? I think I lost count. We have heard all the talking points before, we have seen all the candidates before, nothing new could have possibly happened. Right? If that’s what you thought, you are dead wrong, my friends.
This was the first debate that felt to me like it mattered, to everyone. No kiddie debate, and finally a manageable number of candidates. In fact, this debate got so intense for a while that I actually had to take down notes to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
The sparks flew in this debate, especially between Jeb! and Trump, and Cruz and Rubio. Normally I do this by candidate, but I think this time I will do it by highlighting the two main fights and my impressions of everyone’s role in them, and then a quick word on everyone individually.
The Iraq War:
This was maybe the fight of the night. Coming off of a general discussion on foreign policy in which Trump looked like the kid who’s asked to stand before the class and give a book report about a book he didn’t read, Trump bragged that he’d opposed the Iraq war and left it all but said that he thought Bush should have been impeached for it. He essentially made the Code Pink argument without bothering to go all the way to the “Bush lied people died” chant. But he might have done that, given time. This offered Jeb! a serious chance to jump in, defend his brother, and beat Trump for the ignorant Democrat that he is. Jeb! did a good job of it, actually. Kasich came in and said something of no consequence that I actually think was wrong, then Rubio came and laid down the hard truth. He might as well have said to Jeb!, “Step aside grandpa, this is how it’s done.”
Then Trump sunk so low he blamed W. for 9/11. It was pathetic.
But Rubio converted Trump’s lowest point in his campaign to a brutal and honest attack on Bill Clinton. This whole exchange was yuuuuge. I think it reveals Trump beyond all doubt to be a Democrat. I can’t see how it will help him in the Republican primaries. Maybe in a general it might work better, but in a South Carolina Republican primary?
Illegal Immigration:
Well, Ted and Marco, who are my number two and number one guys in this process, squared off hard on this one issue of seeming divergence. Cruz’s attack is as it’s always been: Slap Rubio with the Gang of Eight. Can’t fault the man for doing what works. Rubio, though, counter-punched hard. He essentially called Cruz a typical politician who in committee moved for amnesty and more visas but then on the floor fought it on just those counts. I guess we shall see how well this can be substantiated, but it was a hard rebuke against the one politician who is working hard to pretend he isn’t one. I’m looking to you, my fellow Ricochetti, to fact-check all of thi, for me. Of final note: Jeb! tried to pull a Christie after this heated Rubio v. Cruz, but like a novice he read the stage directions before delivering the line, by telling us he was going to pull a Christie and slam the Senators for their Senate talk. It was weak, and he lacked all the contempt and bluster that let Christie carry out that nonsense attack.
So let’s get down to the individual men.
Ben Carson: I say this every time I write about him. I just love this guy. If they made a plush doll of him I would buy it and hug it every day. I don’t think Ben has made any headway, sadly. But he made one good point, and had by far my favorite line of the night. The point he made was that judgement is more important when facing new circumstances than experience, because by definition no one could have any experience of a new situation. It was a good defense for his lack of experience, though it could be argued that experience builds wisdom. The line of the night was when he was asked to say something hard for people to hear, something that’s not PC. After a long ramble, he came to it. I shall paraphrase, “America’s problem isn’t evil rich people, but rather an irresponsible and evil government!” Ha! Beautiful.
John Kasich: You can’t see this, but I’m just shaking my head at the man right now. My head-shaking, I think, sums him up the best. New Hampshire was his moment, and it’s all downhill from there. I honestly can’t say anything about him because he said nothing of note or merit. His dad was a Democrat, Democrats like him, and he is running for the Republican nomination. Good luck. pal. Keep Ohio functioning. It’s a good state, you seem a fine governor.
Jeb!: Fourth place was not a bad result in New Hampshire. I doubt he will do better in South Carolina. He did, though, finally figure out how to stand up to Trump. But even at doing this he’s less good than Marco Rubio. Jeb! is like a 10-year-old luxury car. Sure, it’s well built, has leather seats, and cruise control, but Marco is a brand new model with better suspension, faster acceleration, and a sweet paint job. Now, I have a note here that says, “Jeb! said that people should vote for the most conservative governor or senator that can win.” Did he actually say that? With Marco standing right there? The same Marco that leads against Hillary in all the polls? Someone check that, because if he did, that is probably the biggest unforced error of the night.
Ted Cruz: He was good tonight, but not that great overall. His exchange with Rubio on immigration was tough, but I can’t tell if he came out the winner. All Rubio has to do on that front is hold steady, because that’s his one weakness against Cruz. On foreign policy, domestic policy, Ted is nothing special. He was, though, very good about discussing the precedent of judicial nominations and confirmations during election years, and he didn’t let the moderators’ ignorance get in the way, which we all know has tripped up past nominees. Cruz is a solid guy. I think he is more politician than he pretends to be, but I’m not offended by that.
Marco Rubio: Full disclosure: I love Marco Rubio. I really do. I think he is the bee’s knees. Why do I love him so? One, his power to articulate and explain ideas is one of the best if not the best in the party right now, certainly in the current field of nominees. Second, he knows foreign policy and cares deeply about it. When the moderators asked Trump and Jeb! about the three things they would ask about of their advisors about international affairs, Trump said a bunch of nonsense, Jeb! then said that he would have plans, which was basically more articulate nonsense than Trump’s. But Rubio nailed it down hard: China, Russia, and Iran. He gave a clear answer, had specifics. The man has a vision of the whole chess board. He sees it all. I’m not saying here he’s a genius or anything like that. But he sees that it is all connected and that you have to play the whole game, not just parts of it. Above all else, this makes me have confidence in him the most, because when it comes to foreign affairs, the President has the most unilateral powers imaginable under our constitution. On the domestic front, we have checks and balances galore. Elect a solid Republican House and Senate and with Rubio we will have as good an immigration policy as we would under Cruz or Trump. I can’t say the same about foreign policy with Cruz, who to me never seems to say much about it of distinction. Cruz is mostly bluster on this issue, and don’t even get me started on Trump’s foreign policy.
Donald Trump: Let’s get started. The man is a walking foreign policy disaster in the making. He all but says we should make alliance with Russia! His populist economics will do nothing but antagonize our allies. He shows no grasp of understanding how hard we have worked to maintain the world order that gives us prosperity and ensures freedom. I am in despair over this man. I think, “Maybe he is toning it down, maybe he won’t be so bad,” and then he gives populist rants like his on trade tonight, and his Iraq War and 9/11 arguments, and all I can see is a long dark future for freedom in the world if he’s elected. Honestly, I think Hillary might be better, and that very thought makes my head hurt.
What did you guys think? Can Trump be stopped? Is Marco making a comeback? Will Jim Gilmore win a brokered convention? Let me and the rest of Ricochet know.
Published in Elections, General
Sorry Brett, the lie was Cruz claimed Rubio said something in Spanish which he did not say. Cruz, again, was not telling the truth. Go listen to the tape. Cruz’s strategy was to embarrass Rubio about speaking Spanish. And Cruz’s used Spanish to say “go ahead speak” and it was halting and terrible. Cruz’s Spanish is like his non-tithing Christianity. A tad phony.
Rubio has been in the Senate 5+ years, Ted only 3+ years.
I reckon it would be cheaper than sending in the Marines, Rodin.
Wow, Rodin, my thinking hadn’t stretched that far. I was only thinking of Rubio reaching Spanish speakers (and even English speakers whose heart language is Spanish) here in the U.S. Yours is an interesting consideration.
Brian got this right. This is Cruz’s big issue. Too holier-than-thou. It will fly apart under the attack – and there is too much video of Cruz shaving his words. They will show him to be a cynical politician and not the one true conservative. Rubio and Trump have already begun. But Hillary 2016 will blister his smirk. Ted is a mile wide and an inch deep. Wish it wasn’t so, wish he had done something, but alas, nothing accomplished but the shutdown to nowhere.
So we’re all in agreement. Rubio didn’t say what he said. That he wouldn’t rescind DACA.
Because, of course, DACA is not amnesty. Therefore Rubio doesn’t support amnesty.
In a just world Rubio will win South Carolina, and the nomination.
But I don’t think it is a just world.
Rubio is head and shoulders above the rest. I really don’t get the hang up over a bill that did not pass!!! So what? Get over it.
Rubio demurred in a interview with Jorge Ramos. So what? SO WHAT???
At this moment Rubio knows foreign policy best and he knows the immigration problems the best. The man can learn. Not one of the others has learned anything for 20 years, they are stuck in the past arguing fights long finished.
Only Rubio is looking forward.
But once again it isn’t a just world, so who knows.
Or alternately, a twofer:
Those who think Spanish is not an asset would be displeased by hearing Cruz speak in Spanish, and those who do speak Spanish would realize Cruz’s Spanish, is, as Cruz himself had once admitted, rather lousy:
People are funny about foreign languages. In theory, I’m supposed to be “good at” them, in the sense I passed proficiency in two or three with minimal effort and tend to get complimented on lacking “the typical” American accent when I do speak. But I’m just not very venturesome: fearful of making a mistake, I’m often tongue-tied in off-the-cuff conversation. My husband, who has always accepted he was “bad at” languages, may have atrocious grammar and a thick American accent, but he’s the one chatting up my relatives in their native tongue when they come to visit – simply because he’s venturesome and not afraid to make a mistake.
I lean back and forth between Cruz and Rubio. Luke’s post about Rubio and the Gang of Eight bill is troubling.
It’s okay, Luke. Rubio is bilingual: he’s got a separate language for each side of his mouth.
Politicians lie. Diplomats lie for their country. War leaders lie because they know that the truth “should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Statesmen lie for the benefit of the theses of History doctoral candidates yet unborn. I’ll not weep over the violence done to truth, but I am a little curious about who’s being lied to now.
I don’t know…you tell me.
https://pjmedia.com/election/2016/02/14/jindal-santorum-pile-on-cruz-for-planned-parenthood-lie/1/
So – as far as I can tell – one or both of the two possible conservatives for POTUS are big fat liars and/or deceivers. I do understand why some people find Rubio glib or as smarmy as some (increasingly myself) find Cruz.
People I respect (on Ricochet, in the commiteriate, and in person) are divided on which one is which.
Trump is a clown and not serious and likely to govern as a moderate democrat if he doesn’t go down to flaming defeat should he be the nominee, though I’m highly sympathetic to many of the people he appeals to.
Bush – not even a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning in November, as far as I can tell.
Leaving the…
The Wench and the Socialist.
Will we hold the line in the Senate, will holding the line blow up in our faces in the general election, if we do, a half-dozen cases go to the Progressives by default, if we do and we lose, well there is the last bulwark against the continuing expansion of the state.
What’s a dead musical mediocrity from the 18th century to do…
Best lineup in a lifetime, they said. Deep bench, they said. Three expereinced conservative governors, they said. A blow out for the Dems, they said.
I think I’ll go get my son and play with my antique toy trains.
I thought I stipulated that politicians lie. Let’s see…
Yup. Thought so.
Tu Quoque ain’t the name of a tapas restaurant.
I’ll take either Rubio or Cruz at this point.
Perhaps Cruz wanted to bring illegals “out of the shadows” just to snare them like raccoons or rabbits and then send all of them back over the border…yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket.
Cruz continues to say he wants to enforce the law but he refuses to lay out a plan to deport 12 million people. He talks a good game on this and on ISIS. But the details never seem to be there.
And just so we’re all clear, the phrase “out of the shadows” means granting legal status to stay and participate in our economy. Cruz knows this but he continues to lie that he ever supported legal status or in many of his supporters’ and Trump supporters’ and Ann Coulter’s definition, “amnesty”.
Please.
I find them both rather glib. But not in a way which particularly offends me. They both chose to play a game that rewards fighting dirty: politics. At this point, isn’t it enough to hope that at least one of them is playing to win?
Put me down as Pro Percival’s poignantly potent point.
I am as angry as any Trump supporter, but I do not see Trump as the answer. But its also imperative that either Cruz or Rubio drop out if the nominee is to be someone other than Trump. They are blocking each other.
Having said all that, if Trump is the nominee I will re-read Kudlow, say a prayer and pull the handle (mark the ballot) for Trump.
Nice alliteration, Luke.
I was responding to your question in bold. But why single out Rubio as being the sole practitioner of speaking out both sides of his mouth? In the last few months, has Cruz been involved in stretching the truth? Lying? Revising history? Why not take a moment to slam him? Unless of course you really do believe he is a purer, more honest strain of politician than Rubio? Not that Cruz would stretch the truth about being more honest than the other candidates on stage. Okay, Trump is in a whole other category. Granted.
Brian, I didn’t slam Cruz because everybody else is doing such a good job. People need to maintain a certain level of equanimity with regards to our future nominee, otherwise we are going to talk ourselves into how great a candidate he is, just like we did with Mitt Romney. I’m not leaving myself out of that.
I believe Sir Percy when he says this, and believe it when he says,
Rubio has come in for a beating on past threads, but there’s already pretty decent criticism of Cruz on this one.
What gets me about the Rubio vs. Cruz debate is that really I think the two are like 99% the same guy when it comes to ideology and politics. I feel like we are really sitting around and debating the difference in color between charcoal and asphalt, when it comes to these two.
I also don’t understand why any of us are so glum about the other guy, other than a natural instinct to stick up for the guy we like the most. I don’t want to have mean thoughts about Ted just because I like Marco more as a candidate. I want to reserve all my negativity for Trump, Hillary, and Bernie.
Cruz or Trump. No one else.
Politicians have a natural instinct to please. Even if such a president did not mean to say a different thing in a different language that person could slip up or the words of one language could be misinterpreted when translated into another. Sometimes it might just depends upon the personal bias or political view of a particular translator. I think a translator employed by a foreign government would more likely want to keep his employer happy. I believe some leaders in the Middle East like Yasser Arafat have said something in one language or in one country and constantly said something completely different in another country. We’re going to have to have speeches by Presidents Jeb and Marco constantly translated? Then various American websites are going to have to argue about the true meaning of certain foreign language verbs and nouns?
Will all future presidential candidates always be forced to study Spanish now?
Mark Steyn once tried to figure out why Canada was so messed up. He said that he finally uncovered the problem. Instead of studying an important topic like economics in college, all of the Canadian politicians who wish to become prime minister must constantly waste their time learning French. Steyn commented that when this happens you drastically limit the pool of available people to lead your nation.
“…the Russian government is to rent a house in New York as a national center to be Russian in faith and patriotism, to foster the Russian language and keep alive the (Russian) national feeling in immigrants… No man can be a good citizen if he is not at least in process of learning to speak the language of his fellow-citizens. And an alien who remains here without learning to speak English for more than a certain number of years should at the end of that time be treated as having refused to take the preliminary steps necessary to complete Americanization and should be deported. … If we leave the immigrant to be helped by representatives of foreign governments, by foreign societies, by a press and institutions conducted in a foreign language and in the interest of foreign governments, and if we permit the immigrants to exist as alien groups, each group sundered from the rest of the citizens of the country, we shall store up for ourselves bitter trouble in the future. …
Pay heed to the three principal essentials: (1) the need of a common language, with a minimum amount of illiteracy; (2) the need of a common civil standard, similar ideals, beliefs, and customs symbolized by the oath of allegiance to America; and (3) the need of a high standard of living, of reasonable equality of opportunity and of social and industrial justice” — Theodore Roosevelt who probably knew more languages than any president since perhaps John Quincy Adams.
Just had this same conversation with my husband, who is volunteering with the Rubio campaign as of Friday. He’s fine with Cruz as well.
I’m not any more. I started out fine with Cruz–in fact, I was worried about his viability in the general but I thought I probably liked him best on policy. I really have changed my mind. Will I vote for him in the general if he’s the nominee? Well, if I voted for McCain, then I guess I can vote for Cruz. I’d have voted for Nixon over McGovern if I had been old enough to vote. But I really don’t trust Cruz. Integrity is important to me, and I don’t believe he has it.
This country is facing a crisis! Bilingual presidential candidates are stealing votes from English-speaking presidential candidates! If you elect me President, I promise that my command of French is at best broken, and all the German I know comes from war movies! I’ll build a wall made out of Rosetta Stones, and I’ll make Berlitz pay for it!
Rubio avoids Cruz’s Planned Parenthood-shutdown push, September 17, 2015
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/rubio-cruz-planned-parenthood-shutdown-213802
I can’t remember how many times Hugh Hewitt asked the presidential candidates this question. It was a very big story back then.
Fair enough. But I am closer to Lucy on this. I don’t have a problem voting for Cruz and maybe his Machiavellian maneuvering and machinations will be moderated or minimized if he manages to muster many admirable advisers and mentors around him.
Not really interested in rehashing the possible negative consequences from the media and the public on Republicans and a potential Republican nominee responsible for shutting down the government and still in the end losing the battle and then losing the war (the general election). If others want to have at it, go wild.
Isn’t it odd that he chose to do that in SC, where, I have read, GW has an 85% approval rating?