Tag Archives: GOP debate

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GOP awash in contradiction

An astonishing array of competing opinions has gripped the Republican Party by the throat as its presidential stable of candidates prepares to debate on an Iowa stage.

The “star of the show” is a twice-impeached, four-times-indicted candidate for POTUS, Donald Trump … who isn’t even going to be there for the opening round of Q&A.

He’s the talk of the event in absentia. Imagine had he decided to take part. He’d be the talk of the event in that context as well.

I am going to presume this is what Trump has wanted. He is a media hog, even as he proclaims the media to be “the enemy of the people.” The truth is he loves the media and the media love him despite rumors to the contrary about media bias against Trump.

His presence on the political stage has thrown the entire process into chaos, which was one of the hallmarks of the time he held the office of president. His alleged “style” of governing hardly ever contained a moment of research of actual scholarship. He thrived on his “hunch” and his “belief” in what someone had told him.

What continues to astound me, truth be told, is that all of this is OK with the gullible MAGA morons who continue to back this clown’s latest presidential candidacy.

We are left, then, with circumstances in which Trump becomes the story. He’s not at the debate? He’s the story. Would he show up? He is still the story.

This is the environment that makes Donald Trump most comfortable. It saddens me to say it, but it also demonstrates most graphically one more reason why he is patently unfit to hold the office he is seeking.

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To watch or not watch GOP debate

I want to be candid: I do not yet know at this moment whether I intend to watch the Republican Party’s presidential primary debate tomorrow night.

The so-called “frontrunner,” Donald John Trump, says he won’t attend. Which brings me to this: What’s the point of watching if the main man ain’t there?

GOP operatives say Trump is scared sh**less of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has made Trump’s unfitness for office the focal point of his campaign. Christie no doubt will push hard on that notion in Trump’s absence.

I have no clue what runs through what passes for Trump’s mind. He doesn’t have a heart, so there’s no need to wonder about that, right?

Well, I reckon I’ll probably watch it just to get a grip on how far the rest of the field will go in taking down this charlatan/fraud/pretender.

Then again, a major part of me also wants to see how Trump would defend himself against the allegations that will bombard Trump’s empty podium.

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Why not debate ’em … Trump?

You know, it doesn’t really matter to me whether Donald J. Trump will be on a Republican Party primary presidential debate stage with the other guys who want to knock him off.

Truth is, I don’t give a royal rat’s rear end about Trump, or today’s version of the GOP. However, his reported absence from the upcoming debate stage does pose a question or two for me, which I would like to speak to briefly. So … I will.

Some of the GOP frontrunner’s foes are taking aim at him. Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson all have spoken critically of him, his conduct, his lack of “vision” for the future.

I want someone to ask Trump this question: What in the world do you have in the way of agenda for the next four years and beyond? This individual has none. He doesn’t speak to the future. Instead, he chooses to relitigate the 2020 election … which he lost to President Biden!

Let’s not be coy, either, about the indictments. He’s got four of them stacked up, waiting for trials. The feds have indicted him twice; two states, New York and Georgia, have indicted twice as well.

Trump can spare us all the BS about “not wanting to elevate” the others’ standing. The truth is he has no solutions. He cannot speak coherently about the future. He vows to be his fans’ “retribution.”

He is the frontrunner among the MAGA morons who dominate the GOP. And why is that? Because his “base” is too damn ignorant and gullible to realize how seriously damaged he has become and how much damage he brings to a once-great political party.

OK, I fibbed about not giving a “rat’s rear end” about Trump. Of course, I do, which is evident in the frequency of my writing about him. I care about Trump’s future only because I love my country and I do not want it sucked down the toilet drain of Donald Trump’s so-called “ideology.”

As to whether he belongs on the stage with the other GOP presidential candidates … sure he does, but only because he needs to be held accountable politically for the nonsense he continues to barf onto the public stage.

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What took so long to go after Trump?

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The 11th version of the Republican Party presidential debate circus provided one more frontal assault tonight by the three remaining viable challengers to frontrunner Donald J. Trump.

I’m going to join others around the country in asking: What took these guys so long to muster up the guts to go after this guy?

Mitt Romney this morning unleashed a blistering critique of Trump. He challenged his temperament, judgment, his business acumen, his ethics, his morals, his shallowness … have I left anything out?

Then tonight Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich continued their assault on Trump.

This comes after months of seeking to “stay on the high road.” They were cowed by Trump’s lambasting of others who dared criticize him. Trump pointed gleefully at how others who would take shots at him would see their own campaigns evaporate.

Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham? All gone.

Jeb Bush? Toast.

The rest of them? See you later.

Cruz wants to be the last man standing in the anti-Trump brigade, according to the Texas Tribune. But another strategy is beginning to develop: It is to keep the field crowded and denying Trump the ability to gather enough delegates to win the GOP nomination outright on the first ballot at the party convention this summer in Cleveland.

Trump’s incredible crassness has been ripe for criticism all along.

His foes, such as they’ve been to date, have chickened out.

I’ll give former Texas Gov. Perry credit, though, for sticking it to Trump early — only to see his own presidential campaign fizzle out.

Were the other guys afraid that would happen to them as well?

 

 

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Still prefer a debate without crowd noise

GOP debate

The GOP Five are still debating on that Houston stage as I write this.

I am taking a moment to lament the circus atmosphere that these joint appearances have taken on.

Hillary and Bernie play for the same applause lines as Democrats.

Tonight, the Republican presidential candidates are engaging in a multi-pronged insult exchange aimed at bringing out the loudest cheers, hoots, shouts possible.

I wish we could return to the way it was done when these televised presidential debates first came into being.

In 1960, two men — U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon — talked to each other about the issues of the day. A moderator sat in front of them. There was no crowd noise.

The upshot of it? We remember the substance of the debates those two men had. We also remember some of the “optics,” such as at the first debate when Sen. Kennedy appeared robust and Vice President Nixon appeared to have pulled himself out of a sick bed.

The crowd noise is a distraction and it provokes the kinds of exchanges we’re hearing tonight.

 

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Political bloodbath on tap?

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Five men are set to stand on a debate stage tonight in Houston.

Two of them are likely to unsheathe the long knives to use on each other.

A third man, the frontrunner, also is going to be a target.

Candidates No. 4 and 5?  I just hope they get to get a word in edge-wise.

Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio want to elbow each other out of the way to become the Republican Party “establishment” alternative to Donald J. Trump. For Cruz, the Houston debate has been called his “last stand,” or kind of an Alamo reference.

Rubio faces other obstacles, with polls showing him trailing Trump in his home state of Florida.

I continue to root for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who’s the fourth-place candidate — but the one who exhibits the most executive and legislative government experience. He’s a grownup, but in this election cycle, political adulthood isn’t seen as a plus. Too bad.

The fifth man on the stage? I sense that this likely will be Dr. Ben Carson’s last bow on the national political stage.

So, let’s watch the debate tonight and see how much “blood” gets spilled.

My sense is that it’s going to be a serious spectator-friendly event.

 

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Now it’s Marco Rubio in the bulls-eye

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It’s interesting to me how the center of attention among the Republican presidential candidates keeps changing.

Donald J. Trump? Step aside for now. Ted Cruz? Take a seat. Ben Carson? Well, your time might be up anyway.

Today’s target appears to be Marco Rubio, the young senator from Florida who this evening took some heavy incoming fire from Chris Christie . . . among others.

It’s a moving target.

Perhaps eventually the center of attention will settle on one individual. My guess is that it’ll be either Trump or Cruz. With GOP candidates dropping out after poor finishes, the field of candidates will narrow and the “targets of opportunity” will be reduced accordingly.

I was particularly amused by Christie’s attack line this evening when he chided Rubio for his canned-sounding responses to questions. He’s too rehearsed, too polished, too scripted, Christie seemed to say. The young senator — who’s not seeking re-election this year — needs to have an executive job, Christie said, like being a governor, a job Christie holds in New Jersey.

Indeed, some media are reporting this evening that the remaining governors and former governors in the GOP field — Christie, John Kasich of Ohio and Jeb Bush of Florida — took particular delight in unloading on the others who don’t have that kind of government “executive experience.”

Frankly, I cannot blame the governors for taking umbrage at the success some of these others are enjoying in this campaign — at the expense of the governors. I mean after all, we’ve seen several governors and ex-governors already drop out: Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker all have tossed in the towel.

Now, though, the target du jour is Sen. Marco Rubio, the latest poster boy for the so-called “establishment wing” of the Republican Party.

New Hampshire’s primary is set for Tuesday. Voters in both parties will be casting actual secret ballots in secure polling places for the individuals they believe should become the next president.

After this first round of voting, the question is likely to become: Who will be the next candidate to take the heavy fire?

 

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Stay in the debate game, Megyn Kelly

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I am not one generally to speak well of the Fox News Channel.

The cable news network that keeps boasting about its “fair and balanced” approach to news reporting is neither fair or balanced, in my view. Then again, that’s likely my own bias revealing itself . . . for which I will not apologize.

I do applaud Fox, though, for standing behind its superstar news anchor/debate moderator Megyn Kelly.

Fox announced that Kelly will be co-moderator — along with fellow news anchors Chris Wallace and Bret Baier — in a Republican presidential debate scheduled for March.

Big deal? Sure. Donald J. Trump is angry with Kelly because she had the utter gall to ask him a pointed question in the network’s first debate about Trump’s comments regarding women.

He said Kelly disrespected him. I guess he wasn’t paying attention to the heavy lumber she was tossing at the other candidates as well.

Trump was so angry that he didn’t participate in the final GOP debate, also sponsored by Fox, before the Iowa caucuses. His absence from that debate might have played a role in his losing the caucus fight to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Kelly’s  role as moderator should not rest on the pique of a particular candidate who demonstrates a remarkably thin skin as he seeks to become the head of state of the world’s most powerful nation.

This Kelly-Trump feud has become the No. 1 sideshow of this Republican presidential primary campaign.

I happen to be glad that Fox is treating it that way by refusing to knuckle under to a political candidate’s demands.

 

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Trump wins by not showing up

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And the winner of last night’s Republican Party presidential debate is . . . ?

The guy who wasn’t there.

That would be Donald J. Trump.

Why did he win? Because he’s the individual most of American political pundit class is talking about this morning.

This individual’s ability to manipulate the media, those in the know, the public is simply astonishing. It’s the sole reason he remains the Republican frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination.

His ability to control the media narrative, of course, has not a single thing to do with any single idea he’s put forth. Trump’s showmanship is beyond belief.

He staged a rally for veterans while the rest of the GOP field was bashing each others’ brains in. Trump even lured a couple of his rivals from the “undercard” debate — Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum — to the vets rally to yammer about how they, too, were going to be faithful to veterans’ concerns and needs.

The veterans rally, of course, was a plug for Trump and had little to do, really, with the issue of veterans care. Every American already wants to do all they can to care for the veterans who are returning home from war. It has become a mantra — as it should.

Trump’s manipulation of this event, though, is what is so astonishing and is what gives this guy his political staying power.

The record is full of events that would have doomed a candidate who didn’t have Trump’s self-promotion skill set. The insults he has hurled at his foes, at media representatives, at foreign leaders, at voters themselves would have sent any other candidate to the proverbial showers long ago.

Not Trump.

He’s still standing at the head of the line. He boycotted a GOP debate because he’s feuding with one of the moderators.

But we’re still talking about him.

The guy’s a genius at one thing . . . and it has nothing at all to do with becoming president of the United States of America.

 

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Who’s afraid of Megyn Kelly?

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The individual who vows to stare down Russian strongman Vladimir Putin while making America “great again” appears to have come down with a case of the quivers.

Donald J. Trump’s tough talk about how he’ll make Mexico pay for the wall, how he’ll take the oil from the Islamic State and how he’ll make Russia toe the line around the world has backed out of a debate with several other Republican presidential candidates.

His reason? Well, he hasn’t exactly told us.

Trump bails out

He calls one of the debate moderators, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly a “lightweight.” He said she doesn’t like him and then adds that he doesn’t like her, either.

Trump said Kelly was mean to him in that first Fox-sponsored debate when she asked about his views of women.

Trump’s latest stunt has demonstrated beyond a doubt — as he’s done so many times before — that he is totally, utterly and categorically unfit to become the next Leader of the Free World.

How on God’s Earth do we take this guy seriously? I don’t, but hey, that’s no surprise. What still amazes me, though, is that others continue to tell those ubiquitous pollsters how much they love and adore this clown who’s so willing to stick it in the eye of those who adhere to that dreaded “political correctness.”

But he just can’t bring himself to stand in front of an American broadcast journalist and answer tough questions.

Vlad Putin, wherever he is today, is likely laughing out loud . . . at Trump.