By Mollie Hemingway
Friday, January 15, 2016
Fox Business News had another great debate last night,
the first of 2016. The undercard debate featured businesswoman Carly Fiorina,
former Sen. Rick Santorum, and former Gov. Mike Huckabee. Sen. Rand Paul was
not there. He and Fiorina should probably replace Gov. John Kasich, neurosurgeon
Ben Carson, and Gov. Chris Christie for the next main stage debate as they add
far more than the sum of their parts to the discussions, and their absence was
not to the GOP’s benefit. But the main stage debate was also interesting. Here
are some of the takeaways from the debate that also featured Donald Trump, Ted
Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Jeb Bush.
Cruz Comes On
Strong
One of the things that made the debate enjoyable is that,
unlike some previous debates, the first 14 questions were not about Donald
Trump. Cruz, who seemed to take the most fire from his opponents, was given two
tough questions early on. One was about The
New York Times‘ hit on him for failing to disclose a loan he took out for
his Senate race. He handled it deftly. First he made some effective jabs
against the Times‘ overt dislike of
him, including “You know the nice thing about the mainstream media, they don’t
hide their views.” He joked about some of the hysterical language they’ve used
to describe him. And then he explained his loan fully:
We took a loan against our assets to invest it in that campaign to
defend ourselves against those attacks. And the entire New York Times attack —
is that I disclosed that loan on one filing with the United States Senate, that
was a public filing. But it was not on a second filing with FDIC and yes, I
made a paperwork error disclosing it on one piece of paper instead of the
other. But if that’s the best The New York Times has got, they better go back
to the well.
Then came an even tougher question, on whether he’s even
eligible to run for president, on account that his American mother gave birth
to him in Canada. Many people have acted outraged that the question could even
be asked. But Cruz had a good balance between mocking Trump for his turn to
birtherism and substantively answering the concerns. Here are some excerpts
from his answer, which was punctuated with audience laughter and applause:
CRUZ: Well, Neil, I’m glad we’re focusing on the important topics of the
evening.
You know, back in September, my friend Donald said that he had had his
lawyers look at this from every which way, and there was no issue there. There
was nothing to this birther issue.
Now, since September, the Constitution hasn’t changed.
But the poll numbers have.
Oh no, he di-int! It was effective. He explained his take
on longstanding U.S. law that children of U.S. citizens born abroad are
natural-born citizens, including George Romney and John McCain, two other men
who ran for president.
He also noted that under some birther theories, which
require both parents be born on U.S. soil, Donald Trump would be disqualified.
Rather, he suggested:
You’re an American, as is everybody else on this stage, and I would
suggest we focus on who’s best prepared to be commander- in-chief, because
that’s the most important question facing the country.
Trump admitted he’d only raised the issue because of poll
numbers. But when he really tried to insist that it was a legitimate question,
Cruz said:
Well, listen, I’ve spent my entire life defending the Constitution
before the U.S. Supreme Court. And I’ll tell you, I’m not going to be taking
legal advice from Donald Trump.
It was effective, and it showed that Cruz is capable of
really going after Trump, something he’d been somewhat reticent to do before.
As one pundit put it, he’d never seen Trump receive such a beat down.
Trump Fights Back
As effective as Cruz’s thumping of Trump was at the
beginning, Trump fought back mid-debate. When asked if he preferred “the face
of fear and terror,” he said, “It’s not fear and terror, it’s reality.” When
asked about South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s response to the State of the
Union, in which she decried his anger, he responded that he and Haley were
friends, but added:
But she did say there was anger. And I could say, oh, I’m not angry. I’m
very angry because our country is being run horribly, and I will gladly accept
the mantle of anger.
That is what it looks like to capture the electoral mood
of the moment.
When Cruz was asked yet another tough question, this time
about why he was dissing “New York values,” Trump took the opportunity to give
a passionate defense of New York City. He mentioned that William F. Buckley
came from New York and then gave a more general defense:
When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on
Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York. You had
two one hundred…
… you had two 110-story buildings come crashing down. I saw them come
down. Thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it
was the most horrific cleanup, probably in the history of doing this, and in
construction. I was down there, and I’ve never seen anything like it.
And the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more
death, and even the smell of death — nobody understood it. And it was with us
for months, the smell, the air.
New York-based media gushed about his response, as did
other people from the Northeast. The rest of the country might have found it
almost quaint that New Yorkers were sensitive, given how much disdain they seem
to show the rest of the country. But nobody can be upset with a man for
defending his hometown.
It was a tremendously effective moment for Trump and he
continued to perform well as he sparred with others. Like the previous debate,
he took a lower-energy approach, and it worked. He seemed serious and prepared.
Rawr, Rawr Rubio
Marco Rubio has received enthusiastic critical reviews
from various conservative movers and shakers, but he hasn’t quite been able to
translate that into voter support. Last night, he was raring to go. He attacked
Chris Christie for being a liberal and, very late in the debate, launched an
epic tirade against Ted Cruz as, apparently, history’s greatest flip-flopper,
particularly on immigration issues.
Because it was so late in the debate, Cruz essentially
didn’t get a chance to respond. But the hit may have worked. The only problem
is that it won’t move Cruz voters to Rubio but might move Cruz voters to Trump
(under the “I guess I have to go with Trump if I care about this issue”
approach). It weakened Cruz and reinforced Rubio’s perception as an
establishment candidate willing to shiv the one non-establishment conservative
in the race.
Whether it finally gets Rubio some votes, we’ll have to
see. But Pyrrhic victories are still victories, right? Wait. Either way, if it
helps Trump move up in the polls, he should reward Rubio with the VP slot.
Bush: Solid Guy in
Worst Candidate’s Body
Life is cruel. Jeb Bush has absolutely no business
running for President — in the sense that his name is Bush, he is the son and
brother of two presidents, and people are kind of sick of such ruling families
(cough, Clintons, cough). It’s kind of unfair because Jeb Bush was not a bad
governor and is certainly more conservative than his brother and father.
At times it seemed like he was the only adult on the
stage, whether he was talking about the importance of having a plan to defeat
ISIS in the real world (instead of unrealistic TV talk about banning Muslims),
the silliness of a candidate under serious FBI investigation being considered
for high office, or the short-sightedness of economic protectionism. This is a year
for raw emotion over logic, though, even more than most years. He had a great
debate, but only by Jeb Bush standards. He still struggles with landing punches
or otherwise competing in the current drama.
Another Lost
Opportunity for Christie
Chris Christie might be the opposite of Bush. He’s a
really bad politician but a great candidate. He’s funny, tells stories, and
connects with audiences. Early in the debate, he joked that the State of the
Union address was like “Storytime with Barack Obama” where it sounded like
everything in the world is going amazing. Later Rubio said of him:
RUBIO: Unfortunately, Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas
that Barack Obama supports, whether it is Common Core or gun control or the
appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood.
Our next president, and our Republican nominee can not be someone who supports
those positions.
Christie essentially denied all this, which led to the
easy task of finding proof that Rubio’s attacks had more than merit (e.g., on
Sotomayor). All politicians lie, more or less, but Christie was too brazen.
Go Home Kasich and
Carson
There’s not much to say. Kasich spoke at length but
didn’t distinguish himself any more than he has previously. Carson continues
his slow exit from the race. He remains likable but not up to the task of these
debates.
Let’s Be Thankful
for Good Debates
It’s easy to complain about bad moderating, but ever
since the CNBC debacle, the debates have been improved. Tonight the moderators
allowed lengthy fights between candidates instead of constantly interrupting
them. Follow-up questions demanding that candidates tap dance to the
moderators’ demands were kept to a minimum. And the questions elicited a hearty
debate between candidates, helping voters make up their minds instead of just
reminding Republican voters how much they dislike hostile media.
The distractingly attractive hosts Neil Cavuto and Maria
Bartiromo were pointed but not defensive. And the crowd in South Carolina lived
up to their reputation as rowdy, boisterous, and possibly inebriated partisans,
God bless ’em. The crowd booed questions they found unfair, kept Trump in line
by booing him when he got out of line, and a protest of Rand Paul’s absence
even broke out at one point.
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