CLEVELAND — Republicans in the undercard presidential debate took shots at frontrunner Donald Trump, questioning his political principles and commitment to helping the GOP win the White House.
Rick Perry and Carly Fiorina didn’t volunteer the attacks. But they didn’t shy away from them either, when asked by the Fox News debate moderators how they feel about Trump’s rapid rise in the polls and explain his early success with Republican primary voters. Trump, an entertainer and billionaire real estate developer is No. 1 in all recent polls, with support in low to high 20s.
“How can you run for the Republican nomination and be for single payer health care, and I ask that with all due respect,” Perry, the former Texas governor, said. “We need a president that doesn’t just talk a game, but gets real results.”
“Since he has changed his mind on amnesty on healthcare and on abortion I would just ask what are the principles on which he would govern?” added Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO and failed 2010 senate candidate.
The seven Republicans participating in the early evening debate were low in national surveys and failed to qualify for the prime time main event, set for 9 p.m. Thursday. In addition to Perry and Fiorina, contenders in the “happy hour” debate included Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore; former New York Gov. George Pataki; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
The one-hour broadcast was generally a civil affair and covered a range of domestic and foreign policy issues. They made subtle references to why they would be better than their competitors, as when Perry said that he has more experience on immigration and border enforcement than anyone else in the GOP field of 17 candidates, but that was about it.
The candidates mostly stuck to the time limits established by Fox News moderators Bill Hemmer and Martha McCallum.
Besides Trump, the Republican that came under fire from the group of seven fighting to make the top tier in the next debate, set for mid September, was Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Once again, the broadsides came only after prodding by Hemmer and McCallum. But once again, the candidates declined to take a pass.
Asked if Kasich was wrong to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, a move he has vehemently defended as fiscally and compassionately prudent, Jindal and Pataki said the Ohio governor should have taken a pass, as Jindal and many other Republican governors have. Pataki and Jindal said Ohio taxpayers would end up paying a price after current federal funding levels recede, and further criticized Kasich as adding to a damaging culture of dependency on the government.
“I don’t think anyone should be expanding Medicaid,” Jindal said.
“I don’t think you expand entitlements when so many people are dependent on government,” Pataki added.
The seven candidates on the Happy Hour debate stage kept their sparring to a minimum, making only vague references to their superiority over each other by saying that nobody running for president is as capable of addressing the challenges the U.S. faces than they are. If they took issue with the debate format or the questions posed by Hemmer and McCallum, they kept the criticism to themselves and refused to complain.
The winner of the debate, if there was one, was Fiorina, although the Perry campaign countered that the Texan won the evening. Perry escaped the faceoff without a major misstep and arguably shined on the issue of illegal immigration. Performing well was crucial to Perry because he lost his front-runner status when he ran for president in 2012, and never recovered, after a series of debate gaffes.
“I thought the guv was the clear winner on the debate stage,” said Jeff Miller, a senior Perry advisor. “I thought it was incredible. Compare the two stages: You’ve got a strong leader, 14 years of proven results, on the middle of the stage, versus a reality TV star on the middle of the other stage.”
Fiorina was articulate and forceful and shined as she has since becoming a 2016 contender the consensus was that Fiorina shined more than the other six. The media covering the event inside Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland certainly thought that was the case. In area reserved for candidates and their advisors to recap the debate, known as “spin alley,” Fiorina was mobbed by reporters — more so than the other candidates.
And, she picked up right where she left off on stage, criticizing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for misspeaking on the Planned Parenthood body parts issue and flatly rejected Trump’s charge that her tenure as CEO of Hewlett Packard, a job from which she was fired, proves that she is unfit for the presidency.
“Only 40 percent of Republicans knew who I was before this debate, so it’s a great opportunity to introduce myself. “I don’t worry much about something I couldn’t do anything about. I couldn’t do anything about the rules and I certainly wasn’t going to have any influence over what people asked. None of the questions were all that surprising, honestly.”
On Bush, Fiorina said: “It’s disappointing. I spent all of last year, pushing back, effectively, against the war on women…So it’s really disappointing when a frontrunner gives the Democrats a brand new talking point.”
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
