Did you know that the Republicans had a debate last night?

Yepp. In New Hampshire, with ABC. And Fiorina was not invited. Poor Carly, fading into oblivion. Just 4 months ago she was actually topping Trump in a number of New Hampshire polls and now she is not even on the stage.

Here is the full debate, starting with Part I:

[video=youtube;HEKAFZgxwbw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEKAFZgxwbw[/video]

I remember people right here in this forum denigrating the Democrats for holding a debate on a Saturday night.
Well, the Republicans did just that, last night. Is this Saturday night any better a choice than that Saturday night was?

Of course not. It was just hyperpartisan ballywho then just as it would be now. I am glad the Republicans had a debate last night, if for no other reasons than to see Dr. Ben Carson (yes, the aliens have landed in the Roswell of his mind) cause a traffic-jam during the introductions:

[video=youtube;uafScAiaC44]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uafScAiaC44[/video]


LOL!


And then to watch New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie womp Rubio on the head over a scripted line he spoke three times over:

[video=youtube;tQXVijenLfE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQXVijenLfE[/video]

And it looks as if Senator Rubio has earned a new twitter hash-tag for himself: #RobotRubio
Huffpo is calling it Rubio's "Stepford Malfunction".
And yes, people are having a lot of fun with it, at his expense.


Alas, Ronald Reagan's revered 11th commandment is long dead and buried. Thanks, Donald Trump!!

And then there was serial-liar Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who stated that waterboarding is not torture. I would love to see him volunteer to get waterboarded and then lets see what he thinks of it afterward, the (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*).


I'll watch all of it in the next couple of days, but it sure looks like theý pulled out all the stops. The "last chance" debate for some candidates. And in about 48 hours, New Hampshire-ites will start voting....

-Stat

 

Carson appears to be senile!

Watching Christie reaming Rubio without being nasty was interesting. But what was even more intriguing was the negative reaction that Rubio was getting from the audience. Unless he redeemed himself during another part of the debate he is not going to do well in NH.

 

It was interesting watching the moderators repeatedly trying to get Trump to give some details on his proposals - the what and how. He can't do it.

 

Did you know that there wasn't anyone worth listening to on the stage of the Republican debate?​

It appears to me that the Republicans are insisting on losing the 2016 presidential election because it's hard to imagine that they could be trying to choose a worse possible candidate. McCain was a bad choice in 2008. Romney was a worse choice than McCain in 2012. Whoever the Republicans finally pick is going to be worse than Romney and McCain. Picking the worst possible candidate a sure-fire recipe for failure by the Republican Party and they've proven to be very good at selecting the worst possible candidates.

 

Trump will easily win NH and he is up by 16 pts. In SC. All he has to do is remain silent and he gets the nomination at this point. One of the other candidates has to do something remarkable or trump needs to do something really stupid to lose it.

 

the ultimate strategy!

 

The Ben Carson traffic jam was pathetic. The man is an arrogant clown. Of course, the other arrogant clown joined him. They do have that in common!

 

Trump may be up by 16 points in the polls, but he underperformed his polls in Iowa.

People are losing interest. The novelty has worn off, and it was evident last night. He didn't get the kind of audience response that he has gotten in the past. The times the moderators tried to get him to talk specifics underlined his total lack of any real platform.

Iowa blew Trump's aura of inevitability and once again confirmed that this is an election, not a television game show, even if it looks like on on debate night.

Trump may be ahead in the polls now, but if he doesn't at least match the polling number or the plurality, the story on Wednesday morning will be about the second and third place candidates.

Meanwhile, Cruz will be in South Carolina working his large network of evangelical preachers and his 8500 volunteers.

Trump can't match that. He can't even come close.

 

The former will never happen out of such a dull box of crayons, but the latter is certainly a realistic possibility.

 

Trump? Remain silent????????

Where have you been for the last seven months?????

 

The last debate I watched was back in 1992, the VP debate with retired Admiral James Stockdale, Perot's VP candidate. He was also a former POW in Hanoi. He was the worst debater one could ever imagine. But I knew he was a leader, a man I would trust my life to and that of this nation. The word lousy is too kind a word to use when it came to his debate skills. Since then, I haven't watch a single debate. I will make up my mind not on debating skills will mean little to nothing on how one would govern this country, but on whom I think would make the best president. Or at least leave this country in better shape once he leaves office than when he first entered. Something our last two president haven't done.

 

Seems like he does this on a regular basis.

 

I would have not have been able to recall Stockdale, had you not mentioned his name.

You're right. His performance was so bad, that you almost hoped someone would put him out of his misery.

Still, he could have given most of theses clowns a run for their money.

 

It sounds like a train wreck to me.

 

Don't you find that a little disconcerting? "All he has to do is remain silent…" My opinion is that there is no greater liability to Trump than his refusal to detail any policies that may uphold his rhetoric. I suspect he doesn't really have any of that figured out at all. That seems to be a bet that conservatives are at least contemplating, but I ask you in all seriousness; if he receives the nomination, then what? What happens to your nominee when he has to actually explain the undergirdings of his vision for the country? Fundamentally, don't YOU want to know what the structure is? The notion that he is better off keeping his mouth shut serves NO ONE except Trump; which he is a true master of- his life is a running record of that fact.

A part of Trump's strategy to date: "Me versus the Machine." The political machine, the media machine, the PC machine… Awesomely successful. To denigrate the machine, to refuse to engage it, to ignore the historical structure of it... Within that strategy is a tactic to refuse to answer hard questions under the guise of some principle of toughness. The fact is he has not answered policy questions at all, and his core supporters have convinced themselves that to do so would be to cave to pressures of the machine. It may get him through the primaries, but unless he all of the sudden has real answers, he will come to grief by this. The people who occupy the rational middle of the political spectrum will not stand for his endless unsupported promises.

 

My local cable provider had a spat with the local CBS affiliate and I was unable to watch a lot of my favorite shows. So, I spent the afternoon and evening catching up using my On Demand. That means I did little more than switch to the debate during commercials.

What I saw didn't surprise me. The ABC moderators were more interested in voicing their own views than trying to learn those of the participants. And, I really didn't see anything new out of them!

Here's my view on it:

Trump Gets Booed at Debate

Good for him! As he pointed out, the audience was not made up of run-of-the-mill NH voters but the ones who gave $$$$ to certain candidates or the GOP. (FactCheck.org says only 75 RNC donors were in the audience of 1000 and all candidates received an equal number of tickets)(And TheGateWayPundit reports that the Trump campaign only received 20 tickets!)

As for eminent domain – which should count – individual rights or the good of the whole? Without this legal move, a lot of things we take for granted would not exist. Do you drive to work on an Internet? It's probably there because some private property was taken in order to build it. Our country expanded due to the railroads and many of them were only built because they co-opted private holdings.

And how many of those who booed benefited from eminent domain? If you want the full story of the property referred to, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Coking

And here's a question nobody posed – how many times did Florida use eminent domain during Gov Bush's term of office?

And how many people who don't live in New Hampshire are going to be bused in to vote there?

 

Tell me if I remember right. When the League of Woman's Voters had the presidential debate, 1992 and 96, there seemed to be few gotcha question and a lot more substantial issue questions.

 

say it slowly Prrrreesssssident Trrrruuuummmmmmmpppp

 

No need to

 

That has been explained. The speaker in the back was cutting out, that's why not just Carson but Trump and Kasich didn't come out. Try to keep up.

 

Don't you realize how sad it is? Trump can win the nomination IF he remains silent!
If he opens his big mouth one more time, he will (again) put his foot in it and insult another group of people!

Is that the kind of President we want?

 

lololol. why does carson always look so awkward.

 

Just because I said I hadn't watched all of it does not mean I have not already watched the lion's share of it. So, your opinion of how much I have already ingested has absolutely no meaning to me. Feel free to bellyache somewhere else.

And no, it is not a troll thread. Saying it is so just to make yourself somehow feel better will also not make it so.

- - - Updated - - -

He may still be dreaming of all of Joseph's secret stash of grain in those egyptian pyramids!!!

 

Beautiful summary. I actually think the whole strategy is coming undone as the Primaries begin. The months leading up to the Primaries are a touch football game at a BBQ - a bit of fun that you don't have to take too seriously. Polls suggest a lot of GOP voters got into the spirit. The Primaries are a fully fledged NFL season - you can still afford to drop a few & experiment here or there, but it is still serious stuff. Voters are starting to get serious, and while Team Trump may have a coach who can talk a good game, folks are discovering the playbook is mostly doodles he did while he was on the phone or in the restroom. Talk only gets you so far, and the season opener wasn't encouraging.

Voters want someone who can perform in the playoffs & is a chance to win the Superbowl. Some of them will keep telling themselves that Team Donald can do it, but there won't be enough 'true believers' for a conference win, let alone post season action.

(apologies for the heavy handed sports metaphor. Topical ) ,

 

These people knew there was one.



Ratings Gold: GOP's NH Debate Crushes Dems, Draws 13.2 Million Viewers .....

Saturday night's Republican debate in Manchester drew a robust 9.3 rating, attracting an average of 13.2 million viewers. This was up slightly from Fox News' pre-Iowa debate, likely due to three factors: High voter interest now that actual balloting is underway, its airing on over-the-air broadcast network, and the anticipated return of Donald Trump to the stage. Although these numbers are substantially down from the sky-high ratings of the first few Republican debates -- which ranged from 18 to 24 million viewers -- they're still historically high. ABC's forum held on the same weekend of the 2012 campaign was that cycle's highest-rated primary debate, at 7.6 million. Saturday's clash beat that number by more than five million viewers; every GOP debate audience in 2016 has exceeded 11 million. Another striking trend in 2016 is that interest in the Republican race far outstrips the Democratic nominating contest. Some statistics:

"In this election season, debates on cable news channels have generally out-rated debates on broadcast networks. But ABC's debate was the highest-rated one on any broadcast network to date. ABC's Republican match-up also far surpassed MSNBC's Democratic debate earlier in the week. That forum, which was a late addition to the schedule, had 4.5 million viewers, a new low for the debates this season. The second lowest debate of the season was on ABC. There were 7.8 million viewers for its Democratic debate on the Saturday before Christmas."

Caveats about networks and air dates aside, the GOP's New Hampshire debate drew nearlynine million more viewers than the Democrats' version. Pair that data with the record-shattering Republican voter turnout in Iowa, and an enthusiasm gap narrative begins to emerge......snip~

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/02/08/debate-ratings-n2116152