The candidates at the Fox News debate. Fox News photo.
It's that time yet again. Time to go over what happened in last nights debate. As I suspected yesterday I did end up missing about half an hour of the debate. I missed the first 10 minutes or so and then the last 20 minutes at the end. I did try to catch myself up before writing this, but keep in mind if I miss something obvious, that I didn't see the whole thing.
This was a disgusting debate. And I don't mean that in a "woe is our country" kind of way. Several very gross things happened. First of all there was an absolutely sickening moment when Ted Cruz had a booger or some other kind of debris in his mouth. There's a bunch of pictures and videos out there showing that moment, but I really don't want to link to it because I might throw up if I do. It's not really Ted Cruz's fault, but it was still a gross moment
Second, this is probably the first time in politics that a candidates penis came up during a debate. No that isn't a joke and yes it is pretty gross. Marco Rubio had attacked Donald Trump this week by saying he had "small hands" and implying that he had a small, well you know. Mr. Trump, always the bastion of proper manors in these debates, attacked Rubio right back implying such attacks were below the belt (ugh, that pun) and then assured American that there were no problems concerning The Donald's crotch.
I kind of feel dirty having written all that, but it was probably the biggest moment of the debate, and something of a historical moment. And amazingly enough it helps Donald Trump. Marco Rubio's attacks against him were pretty juvenile and I think he had a right to call him out on it. Still, it was a surreal moment, and I am hoping that is the last we have to hear about Big Donald's little Donald. And now I really am going to throw up!
The moderation of this debate was mixed at best. I will give some credit to the Fox News team. They did do a much better job of controlling this debate then Wolf Blitzer did for CNN during the last one. The moderators shut up the candidates many times and generally kept the bickering under control. That's a good improvement compared to the last few debates, and it was welcomed.
However, the bias at Fox New was pretty clear. And it was also clear that it wasn't just anti-Trump. Don't get me wrong, Trump got ganged up on and ambushed by the moderators. The attack that Megyn Kelly launched where she showed three videos of Trump appearing to contradict himself but only allowing him to really answer the charges on one of the videos was obviously biased. The other moderators, Bret Baier and Chris Wallace were also very tough on Trump, but I was more surprised that they hit Marco Rubio as well.
One of the moderators (not sure who) gave him an incredibly loaded question about the 2nd amendment and recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. It was a classic kafkatrap, where any answer he gave would hurt him. If he agreed with Scalia and said that gun rights aren't absolute then he would piss off most of the Republican base. If he disagreed, he would look like he was denigrating the memory of a beloved conservative figure. Though Rubio handled it well it was an obvious trap and a classic no-win situation.
I wasn't too impressed with the debate, and it's moderation, but I do think it was better then the last one. After the first hour or so, the candidates settled down and mostly talked about policy. As always, I will take each candidate on one by one, starting with the guy at the top of the polls and working my way downwards.
Donald Trump:
Rough debate for Donald Trump, but I think he persevered. He was hit hard by Marco Rubio and the moderators all night. Trump University was a major topic, and I think he was hurt by it. Not massively, but enough to raise questions. He is getting sued, and I think the coursework was probably useless, but if that is the best anyone can come up with, I don't think it matters all that much. It does call into question his integrity, which could turn off a few voters, but really, I doubt that Trump University is going to be the thing that stops his momentum.
More worrying is the fact that Trump seems to be pivoting towards the center on quite a few issues. We heard a lot more about how Donald Trump is going to be flexible while in office. He said that he was open to negotiation on basically all of his keystone issues, including immigration. This should not be surprising at all. After all, Donald Trump's entire career is based on making "crazy" demands and then pulling back to the position that you actually want. His example was making his 40 foot wall 35 feet instead, but I am guessing that it extends to most of his positions. For example, his ban on Muslims could simply be a negotiation point to get what he probably actually wants, which is a ban for Muslims coming from states where ISIS or al-Qaeda are active.
All of this should have been obvious to everyone months ago. Indeed, Donald Trump has mentioned in his book that this is the way he makes deals. And it explains why people are so upset at him. They take what is essentially an opening bargaining position and claim it to be his actual beliefs. When you look at it that way, he really does look more unreasonable then he actually is.
Of course this opens up the lane of attack that Trump is going to back down on his beliefs. I think he already did a bit with his new position on H1B visas, which he sounded a bit more supportive then he did in previous debates. I do think that the vast majority of his supporters understand that Trump is exaggerating a bit as a negotiation tactic, and they don't care anyways, because even his fall back positions are better then what they would get with anyone else, but it's possible that some of his more radical supporters could be turned off.
I do have to say that I actually do have major policy disagreements with Donald Trump. Unlike popular opinion seems to think, I'm not in the bag for Trump completely. One of those disagreements raised its head last night. Donald Trump called Edward Snowden a criminal. I think he is a hero and I am not liking the fact that Trump is so pro-NSA. I don't think it hurts him all that much, especially since he was more consistent about it then Ted Cruz was, but it is a major reservation I have with Trump.
Finally I have to say that Donald Trump is pretty good at making up memes, catchphrases and nicknames for his opponents. Much like he made Jeb Bush's official middle name "low energy", Trump had a couple of nicknames for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio that will probably stick to them for a long time. Lying Ted and Little Rubio. I can just see the memes now!
Ted Cruz:
Not a bad night for Cruz. At least it would be if it wasn't for the booger eating (don't google it, it is gross). That disgusting moment aside, he had a decent time of it. Compared to the other candidates he got softball questions and to his credit he had some good answers, at least in my view. His closing statement was very strong, talking about veterans, and I liked that he supports the 2nd amendment. The best thing is that he didn't have to waste much time attacking Donald Trump. Marco Rubio did most of that for him, and it allowed Cruz to talk more about the issues, and even throw a few barbs at Hillary Clinton.
Still, Cruz is in second place and needed to hurt Trump more then he got hurt tonight. He's obviously the establishments guy at this point, but he didn't quite make the case that he deserves it more then Trump. Indeed, most of his attacks on Trump were the same old ones he has hit him with before, and most of those attacks were stolen from Jeb Bush. Nobody really cares that Trump gave money to Hillary Clinton, when he has given money to dozens of politicians, including Ted Cruz. So what if Trump isn't a "true conservative"? Even if it is true, that's not what the GOP base wants right now.
I do think that holding back on attacking Trump was probably the right thing to do regardless though. Even though he wasn't able to hurt Trump as much as he would have wanted, and Marco Rubio didn't either, he at least looked more mature then Rubio did. Though his criticisms were tired and overused, at least they weren't juvenile and stupid.
Of course both Cruz and Rubio kind of destroyed their own arguments against Trump at the end. All the candidates were asked if they would support the others if they ended up as the candidate. All of them said they would, which begs the question, if all the attacks that Cruz and Rubio (and to a lesser extent John Kasich) leveled at Donald Trump are true, that he's racist, sexist, a con-man, a liar and so on, then why on earth are they supporting him if he is the president? Either they don't think that those things are true (my guess) or they just don't have much in the way of integrity. Though I did like that everyone said that they would back each other, it did not help anyone, including Trump. I would like to think that if he had the election stolen from him through a brokered convention, he would burn the party to the ground...
Marco Rubio:
Very bad night for Rubio. I think his campaign is finished unless something drastic happens. He attacked Trump for most of the night and it just isn't working. Not only did Trump hit him back hard, most of the attacks launched did not stick. Most of them were juvenile and annoying. Sure, the attacks on Trump University and Trump's use of foreign workers were valid, if not somewhat stale, but the attacks on Trumps appearance, language and accusing him of doing Yoga because he is so "flexible" were attacks without substance.
Marco Rubio's whole appeal was that he was a policy wonk that stuck to the issues and didn't attack anyone without provocation. He was mature and always had good explanations on the issues. That Marco Rubio appears to be dead and has been replaced by a guy that is trying to out-Trump Donald Trump. And it just isn't working. Not only is Trump better at it, Rubio's supporters aren't going to be impressed with it. Talking about how small your opponents penis is, is not something that the white-collar East Coast conservatives are going to like.My advice to Rubio would to be to completely abandon his new "asshole" persona and go back to being the policy wonk.
Especially since he was fairly good on policy tonight. When he talked about the 2nd amendment he did a good job. And his attacks on Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were spot on, and very welcomed in a debate at the time of year where both parties should be hitting each other instead of their own party. He was wrong about an Arab army fighting ISIS, but at least he was wrong on policy instead of performance.
Rubio really made a mistake a couple of debates ago in adapting this new mean persona. It's going to cost him his shot at the presidency because Cruz is now the odds on favorite to be the establishments choice. He will stick around until Florida votes, but I don't expect him to survive when he loses there....
John Kasich:
Not much to say about Kasich. He didn't talk to much, but when he did I thought the same thing I have though through the last few debates. He's a nice guy that is above all the mudslinging but he's simply wrong on policy. I still like him more then I like Cruz and Rubio just because he's less of a jerk, but I just don't have much I agree with him on. He is wrong on arming the Ukrainians, he is hopelessly naive when it comes to religious liberty, and he is way too much of a hawk on fighting ISIS.
Other then that I just don't have much to say about him. It wasn't a bad night for him by any means, but he was, quite frankly, boring. There is an appeal to boring, one that I think Marco Rubio foolishly pissed away, but it does make it hard to come up with things to say about him!
I do have to say that I was eager to hear what he would have to say about the 2nd amendment and gun rights, because it's an issue I want to know about. I never got the chance though because the moderators never asked him that question. Instead they just seemed to be trying to bait Kasich into attacking Trump. Kasich didn't fall for it, but I am disappointed that I didn't hear what his response to that question would have been.
Conclusions:
Overall, this debate was a poor one. It wasn't a disaster like the CNN one, but it also doesn't help the Republican Party. Once the debate moved on to actual policy it became better, but the constant attacks in the begging are not going to help in November, whoever the candidate is. I am really hoping that the rest of these debates, all two of them, go better and that the candidates actually attack Hillary Clinton instead of each other.
It will also go down in history as the grossest debate ever...
Ok, I posted it anyways. I'm going to throw up now, and I honestly hope this video gets removed on a copyright claim just because it is so gross!
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