The 11th Republican presidential primary debate is over. Here are a few brief thoughts:
New low
What a sad night for the Republican Party. As low as Donald Trump’s rhetoric has sunk the debate this primary cycle, it went even lower. After the Feb. 25 GOP debate, Rubio felt a need to get into the mud to wrestle with the pig. “Have you seen his hands? You know what they say about men with small hands? You can’t trust them.”
Thursday, Trump responded: “[Rubio] referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee.” Thankfully, Bret Baier immediately moved on to a different topic.
Is this honestly where Republicans are as a party? Hand size and innuendos are a topic in a major presidential debate? What does that have to do with a candidate’s ability to be president?
Whatever happened to previous debates, where economics, tax plans and regulatory plans were the focus of the debates? I’m no foreign policy wonk, but even that would have been better than talking about hand size.
Reviewing the moderators
Without commenting on their overall performance, here’s a couple thoughts on the moderators. For a state that is the biggest prize in Tuesday’s elections, it took nearly 90 minutes for any Michigan-specific questions to come up. Keep in mind that Michigan made national news for two different reasons earlier this year, through Flint’s water system and Detroit’s public schools. When Michigan topics did come up, they only got a brief segment of time.
It’s not apparent the moderators were trying to keep speaking times even. Even after Trump ran out to a large lead in speaking time, the moderators came to Trump first out of two commercial breaks. They should have used the break to give other candidates a chance to catch up. Trump ended the debate with 37 percent of the total speaking time, more than twice as much as Rubio got.
Then again, many of the questions aimed at him were quite sharp, and the speaking time may not have come as much of a benefit to him. The moderators did their background research. Of all the GOP debate moderators, the Fox News team probably vetted the GOP front-runner better than any other team so far. It started with Chris Wallace pressing Trump on the deficit, showing that Trump’s spending cuts wouldn’t erase the current budget deficit, let alone the $10 trillion deficit Trump’s tax plan would open up over 10 years. When Trump responded with more proposed spending cuts, Fox was ready with another graphic to show that it still wouldn’t be enough, and that Trump’s savings in certain categories were impossible. Later, Megyn Kelly showed thorough knowledge of Trump University and the ongoing case against Trump.
Romney, Ryan as GOP candidate?
This nominating race is getting dicier by the day. At Betfair.com, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., and Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, are rising in the odds of who will be the 2016 GOP nominee. As of 11:15 p.m. Thursday, the site gives both Romney and Ryan a 1.4 percent chance of being the GOP nominee. Yes, the odds are small, but in a typical primary cycle there would be no chance at all. On the Democratic side, Joe Biden has been thrown into the mix as well, perhaps because the aide who set up Hillary Clinton’s email server has been granted immunity. The vice president has a 2.3 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination, while Clinton still dominates that race. She has more than 90 percent chance of winning that party’s nomination.
Bettors gave the debate victory Thursday night to Ted Cruz. His odds to win the nomination are still small, but they did rise by 1.2 percentage points during the debate. Rubio’s odds stayed put. Trump’s odds fell by 2.3 percentage points.
On the afternoon of Super Tuesday, Trump peaked at 83 percent chance to win the GOP nomination. Now, he’s all the way down to 64 percent. Still a clear front-runner, but will the night’s events lead to changes at the polls and ballot box? Time will tell.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
