Winners and Losers In The GOP Debate

Americans love to pick winners and losers. Just look at the popularity of sports and all those (too often inane) TV game shows. Even occasional cruelty is tolerated in the name of entertainment, i.e., Donald Trump’s notorious “You’re fired” line on The Apprentice.

So, as the dust settles from the first GOP Presidential Debate, which often resembled a barroom brawl more than a productive discussion of issues, I’ll play the game.

Aside from Trump, whose decision to be a no-show paid off, I see Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy as the big winners. Former U.N. Ambassador Haley showed herself to be strong, intelligent, articulate, and informed, clearly someone to be taken seriously as a potential presidential candidate. 

Ramaswamy, on the other hand, was a loud and constantly interrupting presence, a matter of great annoyance to the other seven participants. He appeared to be nothing more than a stand-in for Trump, faithfully reciting some of the most radical positions of the former president and a few of his own. 

So, why do I say he was a winner? Because he went from being a relative unknown to a familiar, if uninformed and often irritating, presence to Republican voters who watched the debate. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that his goal is to run with Trump as vice-president. It’s the only way this brash newcomer can get near the White House in the foreseeable future.

If there are winners, there must also be losers. Who are they? The other six candidates and the Fox News hosts, Martha McCallum and Bret Baier.

Let’s start with the hosts. On the positive side, they came in well prepared with the right topics and the right questions on those topics. But they too often let the event turn into a free-for-all with candidates constantly yelling over each other and speaking beyond their allotted times. As I said, it was too often more like a barroom brawl than a productive discussion about the future of the nation.

Perhaps this apparent neglect was in fact deliberate. This was often TV theatre masquerading as political journalism. Conflict is the heart of drama, and it can be very good for ratings. Jerry Springer proved that beyond a doubt. Fox badly needs better ratings now that Trump is no longer a regular and controversial presence on the network and a huge defamation judgment has curbed how far they dare go in airing strong but audience-grabbing falsehoods. This network is hurting.

Before getting to the other candidates, let’s take a moment to talk about the audience, a group whose manners often descended to that of some of the candidates. How were these people chosen anyway? They were clearly biased in favor of Trump. Their loud booing of Chris Christie’s criticizing of Trump was hardly the mark of open-minded voters. I can’t see how an audience that loudly cheers and boos adds anything to the public’s knowledge.

But, if Fox’s game was theatre rather than information and insight, it was a perfect audience for the network.

Now let’s examine candidate performance. 

RON DESANTIS: Not a good night. He failed to show his softer side (if he has one) and dodged far too many questions to have credibility. Perhaps most telling was that the other candidates did not rain their fire on him as would be expected with a front-runner after Trump. More damaging to a candidate than attacks or insults is to be ridiculed or ignored. He was ignored.

CHRIS CHRISTIE: An okay performance with more positives than negatives in the face of a hostile crowd. However, he performed well enough to convince me that he was one of only three of the candidates up there who could successfully handle the job. The others: Haley and Hutchinson.

ASA HUTCHINSON: Experienced, intelligent, but far too soft-spoken and laid back to be a factor. He has no chance.

TIM SCOTT: Another tepid performer. Played on his underprivileged upbringing but failed to turn that into any policy positions. I wonder what his former teachers who contributed to his success thought about his brutal attack on teachers’ unions and, by extension, teachers.

MIKE PENCE: Played the evangelical religious card so often I thought he might be auditioning for the priesthood. Talked too long (often ignoring the rules) and said too little. His chances are slim and will likely end in Iowa.

DOUG BURGUM: He often sounded like an oil company CEO as he constantly stumped for greater use of fossil fuels. A Ross Perot without the charts. A one-trick pony.

In sum and speaking as someone who covered many political campaigns as a journalist and later counseled political candidates, it was not a great night for democracy. Criticisms of Trump, the front-runner by a mile, were tepid at best. That’s not how you unseat a front-runner.

Finally, there was one moment in the night that I found absolutely distressing. All but Christie and Hutchinson raised their hands to say they would support Trump even if he has been found guilty of a felony by election time. If so, be afraid, America. Be very afraid.