FIRST & FINAL Thoughts On the Week That Was…Part I
Thursday night’s GOP debate from Cleveland, Ohio was the kickoff to the 2016 presidential cycle and it got off to quite a start. Fox News had record ratings as 24 million people tuned in to the primetime square off that saw entertainer and businessman Donald Trump stand center-stage among the top 10 polling candidates making it the highest watched cable news program ever. No doubt “The Donald” was a key factor.
While the entertainment value was clearly enough for us to watch, we were interested in hearing bold ideas and action plans from one or more of the candidates in how he or she (Carly Fiorina in the Tier II 5pm debate) planned to make our republic great once again.
And the candidate we heard from on that stage who articulated conservatism and laid out a plan on how to govern constitutionally and effectively, at least on this particular night, was Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
Several of the candidates on stage had their shining moment and overall we thought the debate was a good first start in helping the primary voter decide who to vote for, though moderator Megyn Kelly had a regrettable evening in our opinion.
But it was Mr. Cruz, the articulate, passionate, and consistent conservative (his words) who stayed on message that excited us the most.
Declaring winners and losers of a debate serves no real purpose. Each campaign immediately spins that their candidate won and browsing the net will result in hundreds of differing opinions from the pundits. We can have that discussion after the Iowa Caucus results next February.
Let’s take a look at each candidate’s performance starting from house left (audience view) to right:
FIRST Chris Christie: We certainly are no fans of the New Jersey governor, someone we, along with many others, had high hopes for in 2009. During the debate, he had a moment or two where we thought we saw a slight glimpse of that 2009 Mr. Christie. The verbal sparring with Senator Rand Paul over the NSA made for some entertaining television viewing, but overall, the governor has too much moderate baggage for us to pay any serious attention to.
Marco Rubio: A very solid performance by the Florida senator. He was articulate, passionate, and spoke from the heart. He has solid conservative ideas (immigration aside), a strong domestic and foreign policy acumen, and can relate well to the average American with his personal statement about his recently paid off student loan debt, living paycheck to paycheck, and his Cuban bartending father who just wanted a better life for his son. His personal achievement of the American Dream is the story Republicans need to tell to all Americans. Mr. Rubio was actually saved from receiving some flak when the Fox News moderators failed to ask him about his “Gang of Eight” membership. There is little doubt that if Senator Rubio could re-do history and erase his amnesty membership club past, he certainly would. As Donald Trump can attest, immigration is an important issue in this next election based on the polls and words like “amnesty”, “pathway to citizenship”, and “legal status” are not something a candidate for president should be saying with any ounce of support. Immigration continues to be Rubio’s achilles heel because of the primary voters’ long memories.
Dr. Ben Carson: If you tuned into the debate halfway through it, you might have asked if the former neurosurgeon dropped out of the race and there was a stand-in on stage. He was hardly acknowledged for most of the night, but his remark about race is near the top of the list for best moments of the whole debate. He said this:
“When I take someone to the operating room, I’m actually operating on the thing that makes them who they are. The skin doesn’t make them who they are, the hair doesn’t make them who they are, and it’s time for us to move beyond that because you know, our strength as a nation comes in our unity.”
Dr. Carson had a solid night with limited exposure and regardless of the outcome of the 2016 race, conservatism is better off with him in it.
Scott Walker: The Wisconsin governor had a pretty average night. The criticism we have of him is that he is way too passive. Now, some may like that in a candidate. Not everyone can be like Howard Dean with his obnoxious screaming. But we just wish the man who took on the public sector unions in his state would fire up the conservative base. Still, we consider him to be one of a handful of candidates we could excitedly support for president next fall. But he needs to “wow” us.
Donald Trump: Donald was Donald. He was funny, stern, defiant, and repeated his campaign slogan of “Making America Great Again” on a few occasions which shows his love for the country. However, he failed to get into policy specifics which is one chief complaint that conservatives have about him. The questions from the Fox News panel to Mr. Trump, though expected, were head scratching at best (pledging not to run third party) to down right uncalled for (Megyn Kelly reigniting the phony “war on women” narrative) at worst. We thought he handled how he was once pro-choice quite nicely when he made it personal by saying he evolved on the issue through some friends who changed their mind on aborting the pregnancy. It was sincere. Overall, Trump survived the onslaught from the moderators, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, and the crowd. If he is still leading in the polls a week from now by the same margins as he did going into this debate, his critics need to start bringing out longer knives, accept that his candidacy is for real, or both.
Jeb Bush: How has this man raised $120 million between his campaign and Super PAC? Being the former governor of Florida and having your father and brother as former presidents certainly helps. But if you are a donor to his campaign, how do you feel the morning after Thursday’s debate? He looked understandably rusty after not debating since 2002. But overall, his demeanor was awkward at best and cringe-worthy at worst. The frightening part as a conservative voter had to be his doubling down on supporting a pathway to citizenship and repeating the “act of love” comment for why immigrants cross illegally. Not a good night for him nor any conservative watching who may have to hold their nose while voting for this man over Hillary next fall.
Mike Huckabee: The former Arkansas governor nearly made Donald Trump’s heart pop out of his chest when during his closing argument, he said this:
It seems like this election has been a whole lot on a person who has been very high in the polls, who doesn’t have a clue about how to govern, a person who has been filled with scandals and could not lead. And of course, I’m talking about Hillary Clinton.”
Moderator Bret Baier could be heard laughing in near hysterical fashion throughout the rest of his closing statement. Mr. Huckabee looked and sounded like he has been on the presidential debate stage before (2008). He was seasoned and articulated the social issues (for personhood amendment and against transgender military policy ) which he cares most about. He was solid on the Iran deal question and when speaking about federalism. Where he got off track and sounded clunky was the question about Social Security reform when he mentioned that pimps and prostitutes weren’t paying into the system. He went on to say that he wants to cut Congress’ benefits to which even Chris Christie made him look silly by pointing out that cutting those benefits would amount to next to nothing in savings. Overall, he was steady but did very little to persuade us that he should be the nominee.
Ted Cruz: As written at the beginning of this blog, the senator was outstanding. Of all the candidates, he looked most ready to take the oath today to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” This is not our official endorsement of his candidacy, but he shined on this night and his polls numbers should rise in the weeks to come.
Rand Paul: On our Thursday morning pre-debate blog, we wrote about wanting to ask some of the candidates a question if we had a chance to be the moderator. For Senator Paul, our question to him was if he was willing to stir up the pot and be more aggressive. We decided at the last minute to edit that out and boy we wish we hadn’t because Dr. Paul put on the gloves from the get-go and was ready to fight. From the moment he took on Donald Trump for not pledging against a third party run to taking on Chris Christie over the NSA program, we cheered him on. Unfortunately, at times, Senator Paul came across as angry for being so far away from the center of the stage. Thursday night was not the highlight of the doctor’s 2016 candidacy but what he did show was that he has a lot of fight left in him to be the next president and we will take that any day.
Final John Kasich: The current Ohio governor certainly had home court advantage with the debate being held inside the arena where LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers play. The crowd was stacked with his faithful Ohio followers. But it wasn’t just the crowd that provided the relaxed atmosphere for the governor. It seemed like the moderators at Fox News were a touch easier on their former colleague. Overall, Governor Kasich handled himself well though, and was more personable than we thought he would be. Should Jeb Bush stumble again and again like he did during this debate, the establishment and political class of the Republican party could turn to Mr. Kasich in order to prevent the base from nominating a true conservative who can actually win.
