GOP Debate Wrapup | The Ashford Zone

Well, I didn’t think I was going to see either debate yesterday, but I was able to hear most of the Junior Varsity debate, and I saw all of the Big Boy Pants debate.

My running Tweet commentary is below, under the fold.

As for the first debate, Fiorina seemed like the clear winner to me. Apparently, I was not the only one to think that. Almost universal consensus on that. Of course, her “victory” was and is going to be overshadowed by the Big Boy Pants debate.

I don’t think there was a clear “winner” of the main debate. I think the Fox News moderators, much to my surprise, did a pretty good job trying to knock the candidates off of their canned talking points. They weren’t successful at it, but at least they tried, and were not afraid to get confrontational with the candidates. Especially Trump (who has been asking for it). I could have done without so many questions on “electability” — those are about the horserace, not about what they would do as president. But otherwise, not bad.

I have a better read on why Trump is appealing — he was the only one who was genuine. Again, he just answered the question, and it didn’t sound like a rote, slightly modified, stump speech. The problem for Trump is that when he applies the #nofilter, he’s pretty abhorrent. He thinks that asking him NOT to call women “fat pigs” is “political correctness”. I would call it respectful. I think his sort of frankness is refreshing, but I don’t see him climbing in the GOP polls. He may have topped out.

Others, like Huckabee, were simply revolting in their views. Carson, too. Their brand of religiosity simply isn’t going to get them the nomination, and it certainly won’t result in a victory over Hillary. The truth is, I didn’t see much of a threat from any of the candidates. I didn’t think, “Uh oh. THAT person might actually give Hillary a problem”. Except Fiorina, actually.

I am sure it did not escape notice, but Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal boldly announced that he would immediately break the law upon assuming office:

“Planned Parenthood had better hope that Hillary Clinton wins this election, because I guarantee you that under President Jindal, January 2017, the Department of Justice and the IRS and everybody else that we can send from the federal government will be going into Planned Parenthood.”

In the spin room later, he said he’d put OSHA and the EPA on them as well. Even Richard Nixon was more discreet about his beliefs that the president could use the executive branch agencies for political purposes. If this were a debate between Jindel and two other people, Jindel would be slammed by now. But so much happened last night, it just got lost in the soup.

Kasich was goofy. Rand Paul was petulant. Walker looked a little out of his league. Most everybody else treaded water.

So, if I had to guess, I would say Trump and Walker probably lost a little ground. Christie too. Rubio gained a bit of ground. Bush stayed even. The rest probably will stay about where they are, which is so low that it hardly matters if they gained or lost a percentage point. Someone will drop off the top ten — Kasich, I expect — and Carly Fiorina will be on the big stage next time.

What was largely missing from the debate was Hillary-bashing. There was some, but not a lot. Almost no mention of the email “scandal”, and Benghazi wasn’t mentioned at all. It is strange: when you turn on Fox News, they all act like Hillary is up to her neck in scandal and she probably won’t win the Democratic nomination, but there was no sign of such schadenfreude last night — everyone assumed she would be the nominee.

Much attention was given to Republican issues — abortion, etc. Some foreign policy re: Iran. But almost nothing on climate change or income inequality. The usual crap about “big government” and too much taxes.

And Lindsay Graham is fucking scary. Dude will get us into World War III sure as I’m sitting here.

Anyway, the tweets …