Here are a few brief thoughts on Thursday’s Republican presidential primary debate.
Cruz v. Trump
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump spent most of the evening fighting over silly things. First, it was over Cruz’s eligibility for the White House. It was valid for Trump to say he just wants the question decided so it doesn’t hang over the campaign. But eligibility wasn’t a serious campaign issue until Trump brought it back up in recent weeks, coincidentally, or not, when Cruz started to look like a threat in Iowa.
Second was the fight over “New York values.” Moderators brought up Cruz’s criticism of Trump’s New York values. Cruz defended those attacks, claiming that not a lot of conservatives come from Manhattan. Trump’s reply invoked Sept. 11, naturally. Twitter responded to Cruz with lists of New York conservatives, like William F. Buckley and the Manhattan Institute (my former employer). These issues made for interesting TV, but they won’t change any votes.
Chinese Tariffs
Are you reading this on an iPhone? Then Donald Trump’s desire for a tariff on Chinese goods would make your next upgrade more expensive. Most of an iPhone’s physical components come from China. Whether you like it or not, one-fifth of imports to the United States come from China. Taxing those goods would mostly hurt Americans, not Chinese.
Marco Rubio explained it simply: “China doesn’t pay the tariff. The buyer pays the tariff.” Jeb Bush gave the examples of Iowa soybean farmers and Boeing plant workers being harmed by the Chinese tariff. Rather than duplicating the trade mistakes that pushed us closer to the Great Depression, we should embrace China as a trade partner.
Moderators
I enjoyed the first FOX Business debate more than this one. In the final half or so, candidates began to really debate each other about their differences over Muslim bans, Chinese tariffs and economic policy. But the debate began slow and candidates weren’t pushed for enough specifics on certain issues, mostly foreign policy. If I recall correctly, the Nov. 10 FOX Business debate was more substantial.
Whole segments between commercial breaks would go by without questions for Ben Carson. Cruz, Rubio and Trump dominated speaking time; each spoke for about twice as long as Carson. Still, I prefer Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo to the moderators for CNN and CNBC’s debates. Most, though not all, of the questions tonight were well put, and candidates were generally given an appropriate amount of time to respond and leeway to go back and forth.
Bonus thought: I watched the undercard debate and did not find it worth discussing.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
