CNN Debate: No one winner, many losers

Solvang, CA - At the Reagan Library, CNN got almost everything it wanted when it came to ratings. They got the highest ratings in CNN’s 35 year history, (although two million less than FOX). But even more than that, if you are a normal person and don’t care how much money a huge corporation makes, the exciting thing was the amount of substance compared with high drama on the night.

In the early debate, unlike last time, there was no clear winner. Some said Graham won, but it certainly was very junior varsity. Basically a scrum. There was a great deal of substance, but both Graham and Santorum could have been more respectful. But again, there was a good deal of substance, and for the millions watching, they got to see that Republicans do have good ideas, even if those four, two senators and two governors, were not the best ones to explain and implement them.

On the big stage, the story of the night was once again Carly Fiorina. She explained clearly what she wants to do in the Middle East: arm the Kurds, support Israel, and scare the living daylights out of Iran. She was clear about what she wanted, while also being inspiring and believable. She took on Trump very well, although she didn’t beat him, (so far nobody has) although she did force him to say that she has a beautiful face, which is the closest he has ever come to apologizing.

Fiorina also laid out an economic plan as well as a tax-reform plan. One is left wondering why Hewlett-Packard ever fired her. However, on Fiorina, we must remember that while many pundits believe she won, last time they thought Rubio won, and he has gone nowhere. The polls, including Drudge, showed Trump as a clear winner.

 

As for Trump, he didn’t hurt himself, but he did not control the show like he probably would have wanted to. He didn’t say a great deal of substance, but he has repeatedly said that he isn’t very concerned about the debates, so his campaign plan seems to be going ahead like he wants it to.

CNN’s one massive mistake of the night was their constant ignoring of Ben Carson, who, while polling second in the polls, got less much less talking time than Trump, Bush, and Fiorina. He did get off one fantastic line when he said that Trump was an okay doctor. He’s not hurt by the debate, but not helped.

The clear loser in the debate, however, was Jeb Bush. He came across as arrogant, angry at Trump, entitled, and confused why anyone would take Trump seriously. He may have great plans, but he talks about them like everyone should just trust him, he’s knows what he’s doing, almost like he’s been bred for this. Which goes back to the age-old problem of Jeb’s last name. He once again sounds like he thinks he should have been coronated.

Marco Rubio once again did well, laying out his plans, while at the same time sparring a bit with Donald Trump. Not hurt terribly by the debate maybe even helped a bit.

Chris Christie also did very well, with his fantastic opening lines about asking the camera to be taken off him and put on the audience, and asking them to raise their hands if any of them thought that their children would be better off than they were. No one raised their hands. He also got in good jabs at Carson, and some laugh lines. He comes out as winner, but one who is unlikely to get much press for his good debate due to how crowded the field is.

Walker did nothing more than okay, as his campaign continues to sputter, he needed a ragingly awesome debate, and got a mediocre one. He isn’t likely to make it past South Carolina if he doesn’t do something soon.

Huckabee did poorly, not because he had gaffes or sounded confused, but because, again, he couldn’t drive the conversation, he had little of great substance to say, and isn’t eve likely at this point to make it to the first Caucus unless he does better than he is doing right now.

Kasich did poorly. He continues to try to be a moderate Republican in a year when the party has shown clearly it wants no such thing. The only reason that his statements are not being hounded and bashed and Donald Trump is not ripping his face off for his statements is because he is going nowhere in the polls.

Ted Cruz said some things of substance, but he must learn how to drive the news cycle and cause his opponents to mention him to get more time if he wants to emerge as a clear winner in the debates.

And lastly, Rand Paul. He had a terrible night, getting off few applause lines or any great memorable statements. His campaign is nearly done, and it doesn’t look like he can kick start it. He came out of the gate at the debate getting punched by Trump, who said he didn’t deserve to be on the stage. If his downward momentum continues, Trump won’t have to repeat that line, because come next debate, he won’t be.

To sum up, it was a great two debates, with generally good moderation, save for the fact that Jake Tapper let Fiorina interrupt him too often, he should have been firmer with her, and that Carson was not given as much talking time as he should, given his place in the polls. It seems entirely possible that the reason for that was he is not a firebrand, and his way of talking does not make for the most exiting television.

We saw eleven highly capable people with real opinions and ideas on how to move America forward on Wednesday night, and at least six or seven of them have a really good chance to be the next President of the United States. None of them are under five investigations for mishandling government secrets, (Hillary) or has such disregard for the American people that they won’t even comb their hair, (Sanders), or has such disregard for liberty that they will charge you a tax when it rains, (O’Malley). Whether you agree with these men and woman on everything or not, it was a proud night to be a Republican.

Andrew C. Abbott

This Night will not go quietly: The CNN Debate

“This night will not go quietly” the commercials from CNN for its upcoming debate promise. With the Rocky Balboa fighting music in the background, the commercials look more like ads for a rematch between Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Manny Pacquiao rather than a political broadcast.

There are a lot of things to look for in the debate that will be airing this evening on CNN, but one the most important is probably CNN itself. A network that is struggling to compete with FOX News’ high ratings, CNN would love to use tonight to prove that they should not be counted out as a network, and they are pulling out all the stops to equal or even surpass FOX’s twenty-four million viewers for its debate. On CNN, for the last few days, there has been a bar counting down the time until the debate, and while FOX mainly went after the candidates themselves, with the hand-raising question and Megyn Kelly taking on Trump, Jack Tapper and company plan on letting the candidates go at each other.

Known for being a left-of-center network, and knowing that no matter what they do, being CNN (actually, just not being FOX would have been enough) will cause cries of foul play and bias in the moderating, CNN has brought Hugh Hewitt, a conservative catholic talk show host, along for the ride, to hopefully mitigate some of the accusations.

Fiorina, former executive of Hewlett-Packard will be making her debut on
the big stage this evening.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Hewitt is supposed to keep things too calm, Jack Tapper commenting only days ago that he (Tapper) can barely control his own five year old kid, so trying to control a 55 year old governor who thinks he should run the world is sort of out of the picture.

But enough about the network, let’s get to the fighters, er…I mean candidates.

This time there will be eleven candidates in the main event at 8 eastern, and four in the smaller debate. (Perry dropped out, Gilmore won’t be there.) The new face on the big stage is of course Carly Fiorina, who did so well in the smaller debate last time that she has been surging in the polls ever since. Mainly, tonight, Fiorina is likely to be worried about proving she has the right to be on the big stage. There is also the story over the comment of Trump talking about her face which seems very likely to be brought up.

As for the main reason most people are tuning in, Donald Trump, expect a few choice Trump lines, although it seems doubtful he would be revealing anything big this evening in the ways of policy plans unveiled by him.

For the man who will be next to him, Ben Carson, who is suddenly surging nationally, Carson seems likely to be somewhat more energetic this evening then in the past, as he has been more combative with his rivals, especially Trump, in the last few weeks. You can expect that those two will go head to head at least once during the evening.

There is also Ted Cruz, senator from Texas and now the only Texan running now that his former governor, Rick Perry has dropped out. It seems most likely that Cruz will be asked about the Iran deal, seeing as the final chance for a vote on it is tomorrow. Cruz has been doing well in the polls recently, and could use the evening, if he plays his cards well, to suddenly jump up to where Ben Carson is right now. Just remember how many people will be watching.

 

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, this could well be his final chance

As for the other man who is seeking to garner the Latino vote, Marco Rubio, while having a stellar debate performance last time, Rubio is still having difficulty gaining traction beneath the shadow of Trump Tower. He may, however, manage to capture some establishment support by being the last “reasonable” man standing when all those inside the beltway are gone. He should do well again tonight.

John Kasich, governor of Ohio, has already done irreparable self-inflicted damage on his campaign by supporting gay marriage, something that will get him nowhere in the all important south.

There are Walker and Bush, both are men being shunted to the side, and at this rate neither will make it to Iowa. Bush has promised to come out swinging, but it has never worked in the past, and does not seem likely to work now. Walker can expect to be asked about his recent statements about abolishing federal labor unions and maybe about his idea to build a wall with Canada.

And finally Chris Christie and Rand Paul, both of them doing poorly. Christie being hampered by the fact that this is the anti-establishment year, as well as his own Bridgegate scandal. He is a man very much headed for the exits, and his podium is on the far outside already. As for Paul, this is his final chance. Tomorrow he has a money bomb, and so far he hasn’t been pulling in much cash. It seems likely that unless he has a stellar, unbelievable debate performance, and then rides that tomorrow to raise a huge amount of funds, Paul will also be on his way out of the race. His campaign is struggling visibly, campaign updates sounding more and more whiney and desperate.

All of this will of course be happening at the Reagan Library here in California, against the backdrop of the man whose famous 11^th commandment was “Never speak ill of a fellow Republican.” Expect that rule to be broken many times over the course of the evening.

Andrew C. Abbott



"Great Soldiers Never Die"...

On Friday, former Governor Rick Perry of Texas, at one time the frontrunner in the 2011-12 GOP Nomination campaign, showed just how different this campaign is from that of four years ago.

At that time the media considered him one of the biggest outsiders in the race, he was sort of the maverick, and people loved him. He was occasionally gaffe prone, but managed to survive until Iowa.

Now, times have changed. The former air force man, the longest serving governor in the history of Texas, (14 years, three and a half terms), the man who, during his stint in office created one-third of all of the jobs in the US, the man who led the great state of Texas, which, if it alone were its own country would be one of the strongest economies on earth, couldn’t even get off the ground with his campaign this time around.

In times past, Rick Perry would seem to be the man to beat. Indeed, with a few less gaffes in 2012, Perry might very well be sitting in the Oval Office right now, running for reelection.

Perry is a man who this time around never even made it to the big stage, while a brain-surgeon, a governor who would like to build a wall between us and Canada, and a billionaire who never learned there is an off switch on his mouth are all standing up there.

There are rumors that part of what destroyed Perry was that he was too busy being governor, many months ago, to engage in the invisible primary, the bloody, bloody battle for talent, money and endorsements from important people in Texas. He lost to Senator Ted Cruz. Having lost America’s most conservative, diverse, and arguably most powerful single state, and having lost on his own home turf at that, Perry was left to dwindle and die.

Without getting into how great Rick Perry may have or not have been for the country were he to move into the White House, it is a troubling sign that a man as accomplished as him was unable to get anywhere with his campaign, despite the fact that he had obviously proven himself a serious public servant with ideas good enough to make his state the best in the nation for jobs creation, he is losing to men who people say they like because of how they talk.

We probably won’t be seeing a whole lot of the governor after this. Maybe some public policy speeches, and endorsement, if some candidate s really lucky in the future maybe a bit of fundraising. I personally would like to see him in a cabinet, either this one or future ones, in some position that would make the best use of his wide array of talents.

But for now, 65 year old Perry will be going back to his ranch in Texas, with his wife Anita, to whom he has been married over half his life. He’s had a good run, and no one can say he didn’t do his best.

With the Republican Party in turmoil, and the nation’s economy struggling, Perry, a man who didn’t believe in divisiveness, and who knew how to fix economies, could have brought healing. But alas, it was not to be.

Perhaps the best epitaph for Perry is from a man not known for saying nice things about people-Donald Trump. When told Perry was leaving the race, Trump said “Perry is one terrific guy.”

 

Andrew C. Abbott

Jon Stewart on 9/11