The three frontrunners at the debate. Reuters.
It's that time. Once again, there was a debate last night, and I am going to walk through what happened. This debate was even more brutal then the last one. The three front runners tore into each other with a fury I have never seen in my entire life. It was a mess and I think it wasn't a great night for anyone involved. To the point where the real winner of the debate may be Hillary Clinton. Indeed, Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, were left alone last night, and we are at the point in the election where that shouldn't happen anymore. Tearing each other down instead of tearing her down only hurts Republicans in the end.
I have to say that the moderation was terrible last night. Wolf Blitzer did a terrible job at controlling the candidates. They often talked over each other and at a few points, four candidates were all trying to talk at once. Candidates routinely talked over their time and ignored questions. Worst of all, John Kasich and Ben Carson were largely ignored throughout the whole debate. They were greatly hurt by the fact that they weren't attacked, and had no chance to respond. Even Trump said that they did not get enough time. When Donald Trump is saying that the moderators should give the lower tier candidates more time, you know they screwed up bad.
Again the audience was a problem. Unlike last time, it was all one persons fault. A woman, presumably a Marcor Rubio supporter, screamed almost every time he said anything. And calling it a scream is being generous. It sounded like a cat getting run over by a car driven by Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction, who is shouting out his window while strangling a hawk. In other words, it was about the worst sound I have ever heard, and it made the debate almost unwatchable at points. I'm not a Rubio supporter anyways, but if had a chance to vote in a primary, I think I would vote against him just because his supporter was so annoying.
As always, I will go through each candidate individually. It was a rough night all around and I don't think anyone really won. And don't expect much talk about policy here. This was a very light debate on policy and mostly focused on the attacks. Only John Kasich and Ben Carson even tried to stick to the issues, so I'm mostly going to be talking about who hit who with what.
Donald Trump:
All Trump needed to do here was survive and I think he will. He has had worse debates as well, but this one was brutal. I think that Donald Trump got a bloody nose. He hit back as hard as he received but Rubio's attack on Trump about Trump University may have some staying power. I'm not exactly sure what went down with that, but it does seem somewhat shady. It hurt him, but no so badly that I think it will actually effect the poll numbers. But I do think that for the first time, someone brought up something that sounds like a legitimate area of concern for Donald Trump. This wasn't an empty attack, it was bringing up something that actually calls his character into question.
Trump also looked rather flustered at points but can you blame him? He was getting hit hard by both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Rubio's attacks were more effective, but Trump was always on the defensive. He hit back of course, but he really didn't get much of a chance to sell his ideas.
For the most part I don't think that the attacks by Rubio and Cruz will hurt Trump. Mostly because they talked over each other, and Trump has never been hurt by these kinds of attacks before. The most repeated "stump Trump" moment in the media was Rubio's attack on Trump for his health care plan. It just didn't work for me. For one thing, Rubio was trying to make it sound like Trump had just one point to his plan, I counted four. First he would repeal Obamacare, keep the requirement for existing conditions coverage, remove state border restrictions for insurance companies, and finally making sure that people don't die in the street without healthcare. You can argue that is lite on details and that it might not work, but you can't say that Trump had no plan. But the media is.
The attack on Donald Trump's tax plan went the same way, but that was mostly from Wolf Blitzer. Right after saying that he would cut some departments, like Education, Blitzer asked how Trump would pay for his tax cuts. He then told him about his plan to cut government waste and fraud, but Blitzer kept hitting him for not having a plan. I think there is plenty of room to criticize Trump here, since every candidate says that, but it's crazy to say that he doesn't have a plan.
Ted Cruz took a different approach to attacking Trump, and I don't think it will do much either. He constantly tried to link him to Democrats. Cruz went with the "Trump's not a conservative" attack, which everyone on the right has been hitting him with for awhile. Trump is still standing though, because few people outside the beltway really care. I personally don't care if he has worked with or said nice things about Democrats, and isn't willing to be a doormat for Israel, and I doubt anyone else does either. The no-true-Scotsman attack doesn't work when you are sick of Scotsmen anyways!
Still, some of the issues brought up tonight may end up hurting Trump. The Trump University scandal seems like a legit problem for Trump, and I expect him to be hit hard for not releasing his tax returns. I have no idea why it even came up, other then Mitt Romney wanted to screw Trump over, but I don't think Trump's answer is going to play well. He might have a real justification not to release them due to being audited, which doesn't look all that good either, but until it happens he will be attacked for not doing so. I don't really expect any kind of scandal to come out from it when he does release them, but not doing so right away makes it look like he has something to hide.
I also thought that Trump's faux outrage over ex-Mexican President Vicente Fox's use of the f-bomb against him was pretty lame. I am sure that Trump has a right to be angry with Fox for his comments, but the way he objected was just silly. Trump has a foul mouth. He swears. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but for him to complain about someone else swearing? Stupid. He did have a good line about making the wall taller, but I don't think anyone was buying this argument. He should have just started dropping f-bombs at Fox instead.
Finally, if Rubio and Cruz's plans were to make the entire debate completely about Donald Trump and let him completely dominate the speaking times, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Trump talked for more then 30 minutes while both Rubio and Cruz got nowhere near as much time to talk. People accuse me of being biased for Trump because I spend more time writing about him, but how couldn't I when he was the complete focus of the debate?
Marco Rubio:
If I could have given Rubio advice for last night it would have been this. Don't wrestle in the mud with pigs. You just end up getting dirty and the pig likes it. Rubio got into it with Trump hard, and he ended up covered in mud. Rubio would have been much better off sticking with the issues and perhaps hitting Ted Cruz more. As it stands right now, I lost a lot of respect for him. Until this point I thought he ran a clean campaign. He never attacked anyone until being attacked himself. Last night we saw a darker side to Marco Rubio, and I didn't like it. He is much better when he just explains his policy positions and refrains from attacking people. He isn't suited to being an attack dog.
I also thought that it was a total joke that he tried to hit Donald Trump for repeating himself. First of all, Trump had to repeat himself because Rubio kept interrupting him. Second, he's being hugely hypocritical. He has repeated himself more then anyone else in this campaign. Indeed, he torpedoed his chances in New Hampshire by losing his mind during the debate that happened right before it and repeating himself again and again about dispelling Obama or some such nonsense. And tonight he sounded like a broken record, repeating himself again and again, while accusing Donald Trump of repeating himself! It was an insane moment, and I don't understand why anyone thinks it makes Rubio look good.
And though it is totally unfair to blame Marco Rubio for the actions of his supporters, that crazy yelling lady really made me mad with him. I know it isn't his fault, but damn if it didn't make it hard to watch the debate...
I was also surprised at how little Rubio hit Ted Cruz. Right now Ted Cruz is his main opponent, not Donald Trump. What Rubio needs is for all the other candidates to drop out so he can gain sole control of the anti-Trump votes. And he needed to do it now, rather then later. Ted Cruz was not hit by Rubio at all, and he also passed on any attacks on Ben Carson and John Kasich. In short he was acting like it was a two person race when it's technically a five person one and definitely a three person one.
I also think that Rubio burned a few bridges with people that might have ended up voting for him. I know that for me, Rubio's choice to get dirty made me less likely to want to vote for him. If I was looking for a mainstream establishment candidate, I would be switching over to John Kasich instead of Rubio.
Ted Cruz:
Though Ted Cruz joined in on the attack on Donald Trump, I don't think he had much of an impact. Rubio is clearly dominating the headlines and nobody is really talking about Ted Cruz's performance. I'm no even sure why he is still in the race. Trump has correctly labeled him a liar, and that label is going to stick. People are going to remember what he did in Iowa for a very long time, and every time it comes up, like it did in this debate, it really hurts him.
Cruz's attacks on Trump also did not have the kind of impact that Rubio's had. While Rubio brought up a few actual areas of concern, Cruz just brought up the same old attacks that have completely failed to make an impact so far. Trumps a "fake conservative". Trump loves Hillary Clinton. And so on. The only original attack that Cruz came up with that was original is trying to say that Trump is in favor of amnesty. Which is ludicrous. Sure, Trump is further to the left then Cruz on the issue, but that's not saying much.
Cruz also, unexpectedly, left Marco Rubio alone. They tangled a lot during the past debates but in this one they didn't hit each other at all. Cruz did more then Rubio, launching a few halfhearted attacks, but he never really went after him hard. This is even dumber for Cruz then it was for Rubio. He doesn't have the backing of the media, both left and right, that Rubio has. And I think Rubio will gain more if Kasich and Carson drop out. Kasich's supporters will probably go to Rubio by default and Carson's will go to Trump or Rubio after what Cruz pulled in Iowa. If Cruz is going to have any chance at, he needs to knock Rubio out of the race before that happens.
I do have to say that there was one policy moment of Cruz's night that I liked. He talked about the impact of illegal immigration on lower class workers. That has largely been ignored lately, during the debates at least, and it always pays to bring it up. Too bad he wasted that point on an attack on Trump, where it was ineffective, instead of directing it at Rubio, Kasich or Carson, where it might have done some damage.
John Kasich:
I think if this had been a normal debate, John Kasich would have won or at least came close to winning. Indeed, the only reason I can't say he did win is because nobody other then me is going to talk about him. Last night was a night that was dominated by fights, and Kasich was just not involved in them. Nobody is going to talk about what Kasich did.
Which is too bad, because I actually liked some of what he had to say for once. He had a very strong answer on foreign policy when it comes to ISIS, Syria, Iraq and Libya. He also was a strong critic of North Korea, which was a topic that the top three candidates seemed to ignore.
I'm not going to pretend that I agreed with Kasich on everything. Far from it. Indeed, I really hated his response to the question about immigration. Nobody wants amnesty anymore. And he was completely wrong about arming Ukraine and completely wiffed on the question about religious liberty.
But did you notice something? The last two paragraphs were about Kasich's positions. Not about how he attacked someone or about some scandal he is involved in. Just the issues. I think for mainstream Republicans, his performance could play well. Too bad most of them won't be paying attention to him. I do hope that he somehow takes over from Rubio as the mainstream candidate. Not bad for a guy I had written off months ago...
Ben Carson:
Total non-factor. Ben Carson had two moments that everyone will remember. First, he said that he wanted to look at the "fruit salad" of a potential Supreme Court Justice nominee's life and positions. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, and I don't think anyone else does either. Second, at one point he said something to the effect of "I wish someone would attack me" so he could have more time to talk. Funny line, but it didn't help him one bit!
Carson just didn't talk all that much. When he did he just complained about how he wasn't getting enough time to talk. Once again, ask Jim Webb how that worked out for him. Though I do think it was unfair how sidelined Carson was this debate, he must have expected it to happen. When the debate is this rough, you need to find a way to get into the fight. Or do what Kasich did, and stick to the issues. Sure, CNN screwed up and screwed up badly by mostly ignoring Carson, but sooner or later he is going to have to fight harder to get his voice heard. Just complaining about it isn't enough. He needs to do something about it!
It is too bad that Carson didn't talk much, because he did have a few good moments. On foreign policy especially, he did well. I liked what he had to say about North Korea, ISIS and Libya, but nobody is ever going to know what he was talking about because he got completely overshadowed.
I have to think that Carson's campaign is done at this point. I wonder why he is still even in the race. He has his 5% poll numbers but not much else. Is it just to spite Ted Cruz? I don't think many of his supporters would vote for Cruz anyways, but by staying in past Super Tuesday, he does slightly hurt Cruz's chances.
Conclusions:
I was not a fan of this debate at all. From the massive and unending attacks, to the shrill lady in the crowd, to the horrible moderation, this will probably go down as the worst debate this year. I don't think we learned anything new about any of the candidates, other then that Rubio is just as likely to fight dirty as anyone else. Indeed, the entire debate seemed pointless.
I am really hoping that Super Tuesday ends the acrimony and fighting between the Republicans. At this point, dragging out the primaries does not help anyone except the Democrats. I still think that whoever the Republican candidate is will be a better president then Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, but I am thinking the margin of victory could be at risk if this continues.
I don't mind some of these attacks, because they occasionally do bring up important issues. But I would really like more coverage on policy differences. I still don't entirely know where Donald Trump stands on the NSA, for example, even though that is a huge issue. It just hasn't come up. Neither have things like Afghanistan, the al-Nusra Front, the Mexican Drug War and so on. I haven't completely committed to any one candidate yet and I still think I need more information then what I have. Fighting all the time just tells me that people can fight, not if they have policies I agree with...
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