What were they thinking? I’m referring to the CNBC questioners in last night’s Republican presidential debate. They started the 2-hour session by asking Donald Trump if he was conducting “a comic book version” of a campaign? Mike Huckabee was asked to rate Trump’s “moral authority” to be president? (Huckabee refused.) And so on with gotcha questions.
The CNBC panelists seemed oblivious to how they came across and how eager they appeared to embarrass the candidates, often on trivial matters. Marco Rubio’s cashing in a small retirement fund and paying a fine for doing so – that was their idea of an important issue.
It backfired. Ted Cruz, then Rubio, then Chris Christie rebelled against the line of questioning. Trump said the questions were “nasty and ridiculous.” Cruz and Rubio noted the Democratic candidates got far more softball questions at their debate. (CNBC wasn’t involved in that event.) “Democrats have the ultimate super PAC,” Rubio said. “It’s called the mainstream media.”
Christie insisted a question on fantasy football – the gambling part – was out of place. All the crises in the world “and we’re talking about fantasy football…Enough on fantasy football!” He accused CNBC’s John Harwood of interrupting in a manner that would be “called rude even in New Jersey,” Christie’s home state. Whew!
Okay, enough about media. For what it’s worth, I have ranked the candidates on how well I thought they did. Here goes.
1) Rubio
2) Christie
3) Trump
4) Cruz
5) Ben Carson
6) John Kasich
7) Jeb Bush
8) Fiorina
9) Huckabee
10) Rand Paul
Rubio was dazzling. He got a series of tough questions on his missing votes in the Senate, his maturity, his finances. He turned the issue of absences from Congress against the media. He noted that John McCain, Barack Obama, and John Kerry missed more votes while campaigning for president than he has, yet were not admonished by the press.
Christie’s poll numbers are weak, but he’s awfully good in debates, especially last night. He faces the camera and talks to the viewing public, not the questioners or the other candidates. Christie has been effective in all three GOP debates. Polls are bound to reflect this eventually.
Trump toned down his game and it worked well. He’s no longer an insult artist, the Don Rickles of the campaign. He almost seemed presidential. Trump seems to have an intuitive sense of how to reshape his candidacy. He’s improved how he handles himself.
Ted Cruz may be a pariah in the Senate, but he acts like he’s at home in the debates. Like Rubio, he’s 3-for-3 in debates. He said the Democratic debate was a fight between “the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks” – that is, the far left and the left. A good line.
Ben Carson. Everyone is waiting for him to crash and burn while trying to explain his policy idiosyncratic positions. He calmly refused again last night to go along. He was steady, unruffled, and never attacked the other candidates. Carson grows on you. A month ago, it would have been shocking to find him number one in any poll. Now it’s not so shocking.
John Kasich was counting on two things in the debate: that his success as Ohio governor would sell, as would his support for a balanced budget amendment. He’ll need a few more debates to pull that off. One of the CNBC folks tried to goad him into attacking Trump and Carson, as he had the day before. He declined.
Jeb Bush did a satisfactory job, but it wasn’t the kind of breakout performance he needs to rally Republicans and awaken his campaign from its slumber. He looked desperate in going after Rubio on missed votes.
Carly Fiorina was fine, but she makes less of an impression because we’re getting used to her. She said everyone would like to see her in a debate with Hillary Clinton. Yes, everyone would.
Mike Huckabee. His best point was that he knows how to battle the Clintons. He did it for years in Arkansas and “lived to tell about it.” True, but I’d rather see Fiorina debate Hillary.
Rand Paul. In every presidential debate at least one candidate gets forgotten by the questioners. This happened to Scott Walker. Last night, it happened to Paul.
