The time for complaining about the notion of a split debate, for presidential candidates with poll numbers hovering around plus or minus zero, has run out. Now it is time to buckle down and
spin, baby, spin.
“I actually think we’re in a better position,” said Brett O’Donnell, a Republican consultant helping Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) prepare for the debate.
“We’re calling it the happy hour debate,” he said. “It’s going to be more substantive and give you a real opportunity to show you’re ready to be president, as opposed to just ready to take on Donald Trump.”
Graham will be just one of the candidates seeking to prove that despite a staggering lack of charisma, he is just as worthy a presidential candidate as any of those other people who voters have actually professed a slight interest in. The others will be the new glasses-wearing Rick Perry, a still-bitter Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal for no reason that anyone else can figure out, semi-professional Hillary Clinton stalker Carly Fiorina, and ex-governors George Pataki and Jim Gilmore. If poll numbers were heartbeats, this debate would be outfitted like an ICU.
“The frustrating part is that everyone in the second group deserves to be taken seriously,” said Republican pollster David Winston, a veteran of Newt Gingrich’s 2012 campaign. “This is an unfortunate dynamic.”
Oh, I don't know about that.
Everyone is laying it on a bit thick.
And speaking of Rick Santorum, he's still steamed.
“They probably need to apologize to the American public more than the candidates; they're the ones not getting the opportunity to get a chance see all the folks who could win this race and who could actually be the best candidate for president,” Santorum, who didn’t make the cut, told NBC News.
I'm not sure that having a split debate is, in the end, going to gain anybody anything. Both groups are too large for anything but the most token of responses and back-and-forth; lumping them together on one stage at one time would serve just as well. The pageant circuit easily accommodates fifty or more contestants, and they still have time to squeeze in a swimsuit competition. Perhaps the party should have asked Donald Trump for advice here?