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By Mark Green
Debates are better than monologues to inform voters, but what happens when a major cable channel refuses to ask follow-up questions of 11 conservatives who agree on almost all issues? Lowry and LaMarche debate how Fiorina/Trump/Jeb did, and what it means when a majority of a party supports or admires a kook?
*GOP Debate II. Lowry and LaMarche agree that the Debate's big reveal was that Donald OneNote's insults + shallowness didn't wear well over three hours. The Host asks whether the adage applies here that "the publicity a skunk gives itself is what kills it"...whether the media will now grab onto new narrative that this was the beginning of the end for him?
Gara thinks that a party of so many Birthers, Climate Deniers, religious and free market fundamentalists does make it hard for the eventual nominee to compete in a General Election. Rich notes that "I've given up as a pundit predicting when Trump will fall." He adds, hopefully, that "it's only mid-September and he's benefited from a record amount of free publicity. But I think he'll fade."
Does it worry you that a majority of your party would embrace such a kook whether or not he becomes the nominee -- i.e., neo-con Stephen Hayes laments that Trump's supporters ignore "facts, logic and reason" which presumably they still will when he eventually exit the race? Lowry won't accept the Q's premise but acknowledges that "if he wins Iowa with 50 percent in five months, I'll be alarmed."
Did CNN lose the debate journalistically because the RNC 'worked the refs" so that moderators didn't ask follow-up policy questions when the eleven on stage said such fantastical things about Immigration, the Economy, Climate, Iran, Iraq etc. ? "I have no problem with follow-up questions, which is what journalism is," says Rich, "but they have to be careful not to fact check the way Candy Crowley did in the 2012 general election debate when she got it partly wrong about what Obama said" after the Benghazi attack.
As for two other personalities:
Fiorina: Gara agrees with the consensus that she won the Debate on style but wonders whether she's now 'ready for her close up'. Her record at Hewlett-Packard was a big negative in her loss to Sen. Barbara Boxer and will be again if she reaches a General Election. And by repeatedly calling Hillary a liar, she now will have to explain her exaggeration of Planned Parenthood video that don't in fact show what she dramatically said they showed.
On the now famous exchange when she coolly said of Trump's comment on her face, "I think every woman understood what Mr. Trump was saying," Rich concludes that "she cut his nuts off. Her answer wasn't about herself but about all women." To come: will this later be seen as his Joseph Welch/McCarthy, Lonesome Rhodes/Face in the Crowd moment when a con artist is exposed?
Bush: The panel thinks Jeb did ok but are underwhelmed at two big moments. Gara initially thought that his one-liner asserting that his brother "kept us safe" was effective but now wonders whether it'll be seen as a gaffe long-term because everyone was thinking "yeah, except for 9/11." (Bill Maher was devastating on this when he marveled at Jeb's cognitive dissonance by citing when W used his bullhorn ...while standing on the rubble of 9/11! Safe?)
Rich couldn't believe that a professional politician like Bush asked for an apology for Trumps' invocation of his Mexican wife and then, when Trump as expected refused, didn't have a Fiorina-like rebuke, like "I expected you'd refuse because that would be the decent thing to do and you're not a decent man."
Bernie and Hillary. What about Chuck Todd's opinion on Meet the Press that, but for Trump, Sanders would be THE big story of 2015-16? Gara agrees, distinguishing between Sanders and Trump because the former "attracts Democrats who are not alienated from the party but rather restive over Hillary" and attracted by his policy approach on inequality. So at Liberty University, Sanders succeeded brilliantly since "he wasn't seeking a Sistern Soljah moment but to engage evangelicals in the problem of income and wealth inequality."
Rich lauds Sanders strategy of going to Liberty, adding that if it had been Santorum at Oberlin, those politically correct students wouldn't' have been as polite as the Liberty students. The Host asks if his praise of Sanders's sincerity hints that he and his colleagues "are licking your chops at the possible good fortune that you might have an admitted socialist to fillet in a general election?" "Yes", Rich candidly responds, as Gara chimes in that he too has felt such impulses in rooting for extreme Republicans (see Reagan in 1980). But he doesn't want to discount the Sanders appeal because "something may be happening that we don't understand."
So is Hillary starting to turn a corner with her apology on emails, DoJ report that she violated no laws and appearance on Jimmy Fallon where she pulled off imitating Trump and was chatty & warm? Rich says there's no data yet to stop her what's not "meltdown" because she's neither funny nor a good politician. Gara tsk tsks by observing that late night humor probably won't convince any to switch to a candidate -- Nixon and GHWBush didn't win because of their humor -- but Reagan's and Obama's chops as having great comedic timing certainly didn't impair their chances. Rich claims that he cringes when Hillary tries to be funny though the Host says that, privately, she's indeed warm and funny and now needs to convey that publicly to counter what critics see as her stern image. Compared to IronLady Fiorina?