Posted on 09/17/2015 7:32:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A terrible and boring debate can still be consequential.
The sheer length of the Republican debates on CNN confounded any chance of there being a single narrative coming out of it. Early on Jeb Bush was completely unable to take on Donald Trump, and I pictured donors rushing to their phones to call Romney back in to save their party from The Donald. But, hours later, Jeb loosened up and showed a sporting personality. Donald Trump came out firing zingers, but became the low-energy man by the end of the night. Jeb gets points for showing any life at all. Trump loses some, being unable to dominate the whole night.
The CNN debate had a much smaller audience made of traditional Republicans. Unlike the Fox debate, John Kasich was not playing before a home-state crowd. The pattern of applause and response by the crowd suggested that it was made up of California GOP insiders and members of the Chamber of Commerce. It was an anti-Trump audience. They saved Jeb Bush from a knockout by rallying to him when he defended the record of his brother. They magnified Fiorina's pushback of Trump.
Rand Paul has to be more sectarian to survive the next month. When his libertarian views are just a light spin on generic Republicanism, he risks sinking. He did best disagreeing with this party on the Iraq war and on drugs.
Carly Fiorina was the winner on points. She's the best speaker by a mile. She's able to talk passionately to pro-lifers, be wry with Donald Trump, and speak fluently about the structure of the U.S. military. She swatted away the question of putting a woman on the $10 bill as a stupid invitation to pander, and she did so with a smart pandering answer of her own. She'll likely see a big boost at the expense of Ben Carson and, to a lesser degree, Trump. But by the end of the debate, her overstuffed answers gave the impression of being a teacher's pet.
Besides Fiorina, Paul, and Bush, the other candidates who did themselves some good included Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and (in the undercard debate) Lindsey Graham. Candidates who stalled included Ben Carson, John Kasich, and Mike Huckabee. Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, and George Pataki were flat. The biggest loser of the night was Scott Walker.
But the GOP itself should get a failing grade overall. The party seems to be operating in an alternate reality where political candidates give their own personal views on vaccine strategy. Or where George W. Bush's presidency gets applause. Jeb Bush, implausibly, complained that Chief Justice John Roberts was something of an unknown when he was appointed to the bench by his brother. That's just false. And in three hours the only memorable mention of the middle class and their economic fortunes was made by Chris Christie, who interrupted a long aside about the respective business careers of Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump. A party that wants to win an election talks about jobs, the economy, and middle class. The GOP mostly didn't.
The party also operates in an alternate reality on foreign policy. Candidates in both the undercard debate and the main event tried to blame the rise of ISIS on Obama, for withdrawing American troops from Iraq. The fact is that this withdrawal was the will of the elected Iraqi national government, and ratified by the signature of Republican President George W. Bush. Republicans throughout the night warned that ISIS was a threat to the United States, which is why they must be defeated in Syria and Iraq. Somehow, the party is committing itself to the idea that the United States can't possibly have effective visa enforcement or border controls and so must reconstruct two war-torn failing states in the Middle East.
Republicans should not count on this one debate hurting Trump in the long run. He is still going to dominate the coverage until he is actually overtaken by someone in the polls. But this debate revealed little strategies of overcoming him: Forget asking him to apologize; instead, bury him in details, call him out in a subtle way.
But more urgent than defeating Donald Trump, the party must find a way to get beyond the George W. Bush years. Wednesday's debate showed a party that is still more comfortable in his shadow. They talk about tax cuts without talking about middle-class jobs. They peddle slight tweaks on Bush's profoundly unpopular comprehensive immigration reform. Its leading candidates want to return America to misery in Iraq. Needed desperately: fewer candidates, more ideas.
an article that necessity did not require be written.
Im surprised these guys don’t critique the would be candidates wardrobes.
This is so Yesterday
I truly think that The Donald was getting bored. I know this Don was.
The coolest corpses in the graveyard
In Baseball terms.......Trump strikes out 26....Couldn't close the deal
From one of my friends on Facebook:
"Fiorina is feisty and smart. But there are serious red flags about her candidacy as a "conservative". Here are ten of them: 1) her support for Cap and Trade, 2) her belief in man-made global warming, 3) her support of The Dream Act, 4) her support for Obama's "Race for the Top" 5) her comments about Roe v Wade being "a settled issue", 6) her support for homosexuals in the military, 7) her support for TARP (though she later recanted) and for the AIG bailout, 8) she has perpetuated the myth that women are paid less for same work, 9) she stated that women need to make up at least half of elected representatives in order for women to be represented 10) she opposes a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court's invention of federal marriage rights for homosexuals, BONUS) she supported confirmation of Sotomayor to SCOTUS."
Does any more need to be said?
Trump is the one driving up the Pubbie debate ratings, astronomically. Ratings that have NEVER been seen, before, for Pubbie debates.
It would be a glorious thing if Trump held a two hour +/- discussion with Mark Levin, in a relaxed, seated format and just fired away at policies that matter to Americans while explaining exactly what he’ll do to turn this country around and make us prosperous, again.
The cable networks, the RNC and the DNC would completely you-know-what themselves. Glenn Beck would jump have to be taken away in the funny wagon. The TDSers, here, would join Beck’s meltdown.
Nice list of Carly “truths”.
This battle against the RINO’s/Establishment will have to be fought on forums and social media, as the MSM and UniParty are doing their level best to silence the majority.
Got an email from John McCain and he is pushing Grahamentum. Hahaha, that will be the day. I never open it, but I am sure they were asking for money.
“But more urgent than defeating Donald Trump, the party must...”
Very telling statement. The party wants to remove its frontrunner, someone their base wants by huge margins and who defeats the democrat opponents in polls as well.
This is why the GOP is dead. Or soon will be.
They only care about self and the status quo. Not about the country, their voters, just about self.
“She’s the best speaker by a mile. “
Rubio and Jindal were far better, without being cold and never smiling.
Like the RECORD of his brother FAILING to Uphold Protect, and Defend the Constitution by not stopping an illegal alien from being elected to his office?
He still hasn't upheld his oath to this day! Cheney got whinny about Hussein the other day, and he STILL hasn't upheld his oath either!
A lot of so called conservatives get agro when anyone mentions it, but Facts are Facts.
Hussein is NOT an American and he's NOT black, and he's married to a tranny! W knew and knows all this and does NOTHING!
We've had the Trump card all this time. Why did they flush us down the crapper?
Co Conspirators!!!!
Tge author flat out lies about ISIS and Iraq.
The only thing George W. Bush signed was a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that had a finite expiration agreement, under the assumption that any sane successor would negotiate a continued agreement. Biden took charge of the negotiations and said in 2010, “I’ll bet my vice presidency that Malaki will extend the SOFA.” Not that the mainstream media will ever hold a liberal responsible for a statement like that.
As late as 2012, all of the top military advisors were recommending that the U.S. maintain 16,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely. Obama overruled our military’s best advice, and lowered our troop levels to zero.
These traitors intentionally lost a war that had been won and created the monsters from ISIS.
Just why is it so darn urgent for the GOP to stop Trump? They have a winner here, a guy who can easily defeat hillary or biden or whoever else the democrats run. A guy who is going to have long long coattails, who is going to revitalize the Republican party and push the democrats into the outer wilderness for a very long time. This makes no sense to me whatsoever!
The GOPE/CNN Fed the questions to Carly early and made sure she was completely prepared with pre-programmed answers.
Want more ideas in the debate?
Look in the mirror Media clowns. Ask serious questions for once. Grown up. These debates are NOT about the Media Morons out of control ego driven nonsense. The “reporters” are suppose tobe there to REPORT a story not try to BE the story!
Go re-read the questions from the 1st 2 debates. The clownish incompetence of the “News media” is on glaring display in them. Try having a real debate on the real issues next time “News media” instead of these childish high school level, pathetically failing, attempts at a “gotcha” fest
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