The Race for Second Place
Last night was the first Republican presidential primary debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle. Eight candidates vying for the GOP nomination took the stage in an event hosted and broadcast live by Fox News.
The candidates were former vice president Mike Pence; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; former South Carolina governor and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the UN; Vivek Ramaswamy; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott; former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson; and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.
The Elephant Not in the Room
This debate was in many ways a race to be 2024's also ran- or, more accurately, 2024's also-also ran. That's because former president Donald Trump, who skipped this debate, holds an astonishing lead in opinion polls, with 62% of likely GOP primary voters saying they'd vote for him. The closest competitor is Ron DeSantis, with 16%. Everybody else is in single digits.
Trump not only skipped this debate, he counter-programmed it. He recorded a one-on-one interview with former Fox News TV personality Tucker Carlson that was streamed on X (formerly known as Twitter) starting just 5 minutes before the GOP debate. Consider that a huge middle finger not just to Republican party but to Fox News as well.
Recall that when Trump skipped a GOP primary debate in 2016 Fox News was very critical of him. This time around they tried playing nice even as Trump dunked on them. He not only counter-programmed their live debate, he did it with a disgraced former employee they fired over his involvement in a lawsuit that cost the company nearly 800 million dollars.
Winners and Losers in the Race for Second Place
Everyone always wants to know who won or lost the debate. Based on what I've seen and read there are at least 10 winners and losers- which is astonishing for a debate that only had 8 candidates. I'll keep the list shorter here at 3:
Winner: Nikki Haley. Haley won for Most in Touch with the US Mainstream. She broke with right-wing orthodoxy in criticizing the enormous debt added under Trump's administration, acknowledging that human-caused climate change is real and is a crisis, and saying that abortion shouldn't be banned at the federal level. She also spoke well and clearly, coming across both polished and thoughtful. Would I vote for her? Hell no. While her positions would have intrigued me back in the 1990s, the modern GOP is nothing like the party of 30 years ago. They have remade themselves into a shocking amalgam of liars, clowns, grifters, and fascists. A vote for any one of them is a vote for the whole rotten party and its rotten ideas. I will never again vote for a GOP candidate in any race until the party is reformed- and by reformed I mean so thoroughly cleaned of noxious beliefs and members that really the only solution is for it to go the way of the Whig Party and let something new rise from its ashes.
Winner: Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy won for Most Trump-like. He knew all the MAGA hot buttons and pressed them. He was bombastic, ignorant, and frankly scary with his outrageous proposals for, e.g., extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects and invading Mexico.
Loser: Ron DeSantis. DeSantis has long been seen as the second place contender in this primary cycle, the only candidate who has a chance of taking the nomination from Trump (as remote as the polling numbers indicate that is). After his campaign has stumbled several times in recent weeks this debate was seen as his moment to shine. Instead, he fell flat. His wooden performance underscored a minority opinion I've seen for weeks about his high profile as Florida governor- that he's strong in carefully choreographed PR opportunities with friendly media inside the GOP echo chamber but can't handle anything outside of that. Indeed, here even inside the GOP echo chamber with friendly media, just criticism from within his own party left him stumbling to find footing.
The candidates were former vice president Mike Pence; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; former South Carolina governor and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the UN; Vivek Ramaswamy; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott; former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson; and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.
The Elephant Not in the Room
This debate was in many ways a race to be 2024's also ran- or, more accurately, 2024's also-also ran. That's because former president Donald Trump, who skipped this debate, holds an astonishing lead in opinion polls, with 62% of likely GOP primary voters saying they'd vote for him. The closest competitor is Ron DeSantis, with 16%. Everybody else is in single digits.
Trump not only skipped this debate, he counter-programmed it. He recorded a one-on-one interview with former Fox News TV personality Tucker Carlson that was streamed on X (formerly known as Twitter) starting just 5 minutes before the GOP debate. Consider that a huge middle finger not just to Republican party but to Fox News as well.
Recall that when Trump skipped a GOP primary debate in 2016 Fox News was very critical of him. This time around they tried playing nice even as Trump dunked on them. He not only counter-programmed their live debate, he did it with a disgraced former employee they fired over his involvement in a lawsuit that cost the company nearly 800 million dollars.
Winners and Losers in the Race for Second Place
Everyone always wants to know who won or lost the debate. Based on what I've seen and read there are at least 10 winners and losers- which is astonishing for a debate that only had 8 candidates. I'll keep the list shorter here at 3:
Winner: Nikki Haley. Haley won for Most in Touch with the US Mainstream. She broke with right-wing orthodoxy in criticizing the enormous debt added under Trump's administration, acknowledging that human-caused climate change is real and is a crisis, and saying that abortion shouldn't be banned at the federal level. She also spoke well and clearly, coming across both polished and thoughtful. Would I vote for her? Hell no. While her positions would have intrigued me back in the 1990s, the modern GOP is nothing like the party of 30 years ago. They have remade themselves into a shocking amalgam of liars, clowns, grifters, and fascists. A vote for any one of them is a vote for the whole rotten party and its rotten ideas. I will never again vote for a GOP candidate in any race until the party is reformed- and by reformed I mean so thoroughly cleaned of noxious beliefs and members that really the only solution is for it to go the way of the Whig Party and let something new rise from its ashes.
Winner: Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy won for Most Trump-like. He knew all the MAGA hot buttons and pressed them. He was bombastic, ignorant, and frankly scary with his outrageous proposals for, e.g., extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects and invading Mexico.
Loser: Ron DeSantis. DeSantis has long been seen as the second place contender in this primary cycle, the only candidate who has a chance of taking the nomination from Trump (as remote as the polling numbers indicate that is). After his campaign has stumbled several times in recent weeks this debate was seen as his moment to shine. Instead, he fell flat. His wooden performance underscored a minority opinion I've seen for weeks about his high profile as Florida governor- that he's strong in carefully choreographed PR opportunities with friendly media inside the GOP echo chamber but can't handle anything outside of that. Indeed, here even inside the GOP echo chamber with friendly media, just criticism from within his own party left him stumbling to find footing.