the Seniors I teach in AP Government had asked me to live tweet both the Democratic debate on Thursday and last night’s Republican debate. So I posted dozens upon dozens of tweets during the more than 2.5 hours. Before turning to a few specific examples, allow me to offer a few general comments.
First, the moderators — they seemed to want to get a fight going, starting from the very first questions. To their credit, they did try using followups to get candidates to answer the questions actually asked, usually to little avail. What they rarely did was moderate — candidates regularly went well over the allotted time, we could hear the bell indicating the end of time, on a few occasions twice, and yet rarely did they try to cut off someone speaking.
There were a few surprised among the questions, perhaps including the one about conflicts between police and minority communities. Sadly, as I noted multiple times, there was nothing on Flint, nothing on global climate change, nothing on K-12 education (although that topic would have allowed for a real contrast between Jeb Bush who supports Common Core and all those who would have used it to attack both Bush and Obama). Someone responding to me noted there was nothing about gun violence, which reminds me that given all the talk about the dangers of terrorism from the Islamic world, there was also no mention of domestic violence which is largely from the political right in this country and has nothing to do with Islam.
But there is so much more . . .
Thinking back to Thursday night, both Dem candidates at times stretched the truth a bit. And one can say that Bernie at times resorted to his key talking points. But there was nothing compared to the outright untruths coming out of the mouths of almost all of the Republican candidates. Hillary Clinton does not advocate abortion on demand even up to the day of delivery. Obama does not advocate ransoming hostages. And it was not Obama that refused to work with the Republicans in Congress, but exactly the opposite, starting with various meetings on January 20th, both in Washington DC and organized by the Koch Brothers.
There were a number of moments that actually stick. Let me start with one that perhaps made a candidate seem ALMOST sympathetic, and that was Cruz talking about the addiction of his half sister, and his maxxing out a credit card to send her son to Valley Forge Military Academy. I said “ALMOST” because at a moment when he probably was getting a great deal of sympathy he then pivoted into attack mode against Obama.
Perhaps what stuck most, other than the disorganization of introducing the candidates and getting them on stage, was Chris Christie nailing on Marco Rubio. Seeing the Floridian repeat the same point 4 times, twice in the exact same words, demonstrated Christie’s criticism that all he does is repeat talking points, that he is a boy in a bubble (which Christie somewhat deflated).
What that led me to notice were certain patterns from Rubio. One could almost see the wheels spinning as his mind went through to find what he thought was the appropriate talking point, at which point his voice would rise in intensity and volume (and a wee bit in pitch) and his body language would change. That seemed consistent throughout the debate. Occasionally his talking point would be relevant, but not always. When Christie called him out, Rubio resorted to what seemed to me uncomfortable laughter.
Regardless of post-debate commentary by talking heads on CNN, ABC and MSNBC, I actually think Carson did himself some good. HE had several moments of humor.
Trump also had several memorable moments — his shushing of Jeb during the discussion about eminent domain, and of course his dig at Cruz stealing Carson’s votes at the beginning of his (the final) closing statement.
Overall assessments are as follows.
Strongest overall performance was Christie, in large part because he took down Rubio a few notches.
Weakest overall performance is harder to determine — one could make a case for each of Rubio, Cruz and Kasich, Rubio and Kasich from the first part of the debate, although each got better as it went on, Cruz because he smarminess was never absent for long.
I do not think the debate will change the top line for Tuesday, which is that Trump should, given his large lead, win. There is one caveat there, and that is his answer on eminent domain, where the question included a specific reference to a pipeline in NH that is locally hated. I think his failure to acknowledge that in some way may cost him a couple of percent from voters who might otherwise be inclined to support him.
I do not think Christie’s relatively strong performance is enough to vault him into 2nd, since he starts from such a low base. One would think 2nd would remain a toss up, with any of Cruz, Rubio, Bush and Kasich having a shot, depending upon how the votes break late, and also what the weather is — one might argue that a bad snowstorm might affect Trump most of all.
During my tweeting, I found myself regularly having to correct what the candidates were saying. The twp direct references to Reagan, about his 11th Commandment not to criticize other Republicans and that the hostages in Iran were released only after he was sworn in stands out in marked contrast to ignoring other things about his legacy. Take the issue of hostage negotiation. As I wrote in real-time
None of the Republicans seemed to want to acknowledge that Reagan traded weapons to Iran in order to have the Iranians use their influence to release Americans held hostage in Lebanon by people supported by Iran. And yes, that led to additional Americans being taken hostage.
There were a number of cases where candidates misspoke, one example of which I mentioned here:
And while on that topic, while I gave Cruz credit for one statement:
he immediate began to lie again. On that topic, about finding people overstaying their visas, allow me to offer two additional tweets I offered:
On the comment that we would not let people die in the streets, offered by Donald Trump, I wrote
I could also imagine someone combining video of Trump saying that with his remarks that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose votes . . ..
About the idea that one could simply allow people to buy health insurance across state lines, which totally ignores that regulation of insurance is currently a state function, there seems to be ignorance of this
with the concomitant fact that to have to have such federal regulation is a direct contradiction of advocacy of the 10th Amendment offered by several candidates .
Speaking of that, it reminds me of another misspeaking, this time by Rubio, who said that the 10th Amendment reserved things to the states or the “private sector” I noted:
The actually wording is to the states or the people respectively. And part of what is wrong with many Republicans is that they conflate the “private sector” meaning to a large degree corporations with the people. The words “private sector” do NOT appear in the Constitution.
Let me offer a few more of my real-time tweets which I think demonstrate the problems with much of what I heard last night.
Excuse the typo in that one. I was live-tweeting.
Several in response to Ted Cruz:
And while Rubio correctly noted that we needed Sunni troops to combat Isis (not merely Muslim, as I had noted of Sanders’ remarks during the Dem debate), he then blew that one up, as I noted
Rubio is on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. That he does not know that Kurds are not Arabs should be troubling, especially considering that the Kurdish problem, which was created by Britain and France in the aftermath of the First World War, is one of the permanent issues in that region.
And finally, there were mentions of “the Caliphate” to which I responded
I probably would have watched the debate not merely because my students did ask me to live-tweet it, and not merely because I teach college level (Advanced Placement) Government & Politics, but also because I admit to being a political junkie.
There are other issues that will come from this debate which potentially could haunt the Republican nominee. Certainly Rubio is vulnerable on unwllingness to allow rape and incest exceptions to his opposition to abortion. Those willing to waterboard seem to ignore that it is covered under international law as a simulation of death (simulates drowning) and is specifically banned by federal statute. It seems remarkable that someone who argues he would repeal all of Obama’s executive orders (really? ALL of them? Do you even know what they all are?) as a violation of law and Constitution would immediately order an action that is itself in violation of US Statute and of the Constitution (since ratified treaties are according to Article 6 part of the “supreme law of the land”).
I do not know what the mood of the American people will be next Fall. I do note that as of right now Hillary Clinton is more trusted to deal with terrorism than is any Republican candidate. On a personal level, I consider this a remarkably WEAK field of Republican candidates. Each debate demonstrates that more clearly to me.
So what are the effects? I still expect Trump to win. I expect Carson will continue at least through SC in part to pay back Cruz by undercutting his support among Evangelicals. Bush’s Superpac has so much money he is buying an ad on the Superbowl. Regardless of how he does, he is likely to go one more round.
If Kasich does not finish in top four, I suspect he will drop out next week. Unless the debate last night drops Rubio to 4th, he goes on. Cruz still has lots of money so he goes on. Given the lay of the land, after Fiorina, the two most likely to drop out next could well be Kasich and Christie, despite RELATIVELY strong debate performances.
But we’ll see.
Does that mean I have to keep watching these things? Yep, because eventually one of the current occupants of the clown car will become the nominee of a major political party. I know both Dem campaigns are paying attention and storing up information to use in the general.
One final point — after Iowa the media/pundits built up Rubio. But what the media giveth, the media can taketh away. The post-debate commentary was nearly unanimous — Rubio floundered, particularly in his early exchanges with Christie.
Make of all this what you will. Having a little time on my hands this morning, and knowing I will not be watching the football game tonight, I thought I could devote some time to putting this together.
Make of it what you will.
Peace.