The Day After the Debate: Say Say Say
Wednesday's debate was the first one in a long time, and was the de facto national debut for at least half the people
on that stage. So, people had a lot to say say say yesterday, both verbally and in print. Forgive us for using this
organizing approach for a second time in as many items, but here's a list of 10 things we found most noteworthy:
- The Ratings Game: The ratings for the debate are in, and they are... just OK. It
drew
12.8 million viewers, which is very good for a non-sports cable broadcast (by contrast, the hit show Yellowstone
gets about 8 million viewers when new episodes are broadcast). However, the first GOP candidates' debate in 2016 drew 24
million viewers. And the first round of Democratic debates in 2020 (remember, the "first" debate was split into Debate
1A and Debate 1B, on consecutive days) drew 24.3 million viewers and 27.1 million viewers. What caused the decline?
Undoubtedly some combination of: (1) cord-cutting, (2) the RNC making it not all that easy to watch, and (3) the absence
of anyone on stage who has a serious chance to become president, or even to become a major-party nominee.
- What a Sh**show: In
our write-up,
we noted that the debate involved a lot of shouting, not a lot of substance, and a mediocre performance
by the moderators. Perhaps we were too kind, as numerous commentators were considerably more critical.
Pundit Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—who, we are given to understand, used to play basketball professionally—wrote
an op-ed
for The Daily Beast in which he called it a "sad spectacle." Jeffrey McCall, writing for The Hill,
preferred
"media spectacle." Brian Moylan, for Politico,
compared it
to the Real Housewives reality-TV franchise. He writes:
Just like their outfits are all mostly the same, so are their policy points. Do they want a three-week abortion ban or a
15-week abortion ban? Are all of America's problems caused by the left in general or "Bidenomics" specifically? Do they
hate China a lot or do they hate China a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot? The distinctions hardly matter and, just like Real
Housewives who are referring to a text about a tweet that someone DMed the woman's makeup artist, the facts and figures
of this lot can hardly be trusted. It's less about what they have to say and more about how they have to say it and how
they're interacting with their castmates.
We can't say we disagree.
- Abort... on Abortion?: Yesterday—that is to say, about 12 hours after the debate ended—RNC
Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel
appeared
on Fox News to say that she was happy that abortion came up at the debate, and that "We're not going to win" if Republicans
don't talk about the issue in 2024. Maybe that is true. But perhaps, if she had watched the debate a little more closely, she might have
noticed
that Republican candidates don't know what to say. Mike Pence, who was once a hardliner on abortion (as in "no abortions, ever"), said
repeatedly that a 15-week ban should be the cutoff, and a couple of other candidates nodded agreement. Nikki Haley said that was unrealistic.
Ramaswamy wants a total ban. As the headline of an Ed Kilgore
piece on the subject
observes: "Debate Shows Republicans Are in Total Disarray on Abortion." The problem, which McDaniel certainly knows, even if she can't
say it, is that there's no position that is both: (1) acceptable to the hard-right evangelicals who are key to Republicans' electoral hopes,
and (2) acceptable to general electorate voters.
- We Candidates Three, Part I: Something like 95% of the discussion of specific candidates
is being devoted to just three of the eight people who were on stage on Wednesday. The first of those is Gov. Ron
DeSantis (R-FL). There aren't too many people who think he had a bad debate, but there also aren't too many people who
think he had a good debate, either. Phrases like "didn't hurt himself," "meh," "held serve," and "perfectly average"
were the order of the day. That doesn't mean he didn't hurt himself, and he's come in for criticism on two fronts. The
first is that he needed to regain his lost momentum, and by failing to seize the day, he
may have squandered
his last, slight chance of making a race of it. The second is that he showed himself, in a noticeable way, to be rather
shifty. His pitch is that he's a strong leader, and that where he goes, others follow. But he consistently dodged
questions, as we noted briefly, and as
Slate's Jim Newell
and
The Bulwark's Will Saletan
noted in detail. Even when the Governor took a position on a question, he was often hesitant, and tended to wait to see
what the other candidates said or did. This does not project "strong," and "strong" is what Trumpy voters demand.
- We Candidates Three, Part II: The second candidate who is getting a lot of attention is
Nikki Haley; commenters across the spectrum thought, as we did, that she gave the performance of the night. That includes, among others,
the panel on Fox and Friends,
The New York Times' David Brooks,
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough,
CNN's SE Cupp,
and even...
Joe Biden.
Isaac Bailey of The Charlotte Observer even
echoed
our assessment that Haley is the most electable candidate the Republicans have. The
only problem
is that her good-for-the-general-election rhetoric is absolute poison for a 21st century Republican primary.
- We Candidates Three, Part III: And finally, Vivek Ramaswamy probably got as much press attention
in the last 24 hours as he did in the last 2 months. And he was
searched
on Google over 1 million times after the debate ended. Everyone agrees that he was the "star" of the (reality) show,
such as it is. Everyone agrees he's making a play for the #2 slot on a number two ticket (and see below). Finally, everyone also agrees that his brand is "loathsome"; one piece
describes
him as the Republican Pete Buttigieg, in the sense that all the other candidates hate him.
Another
riffs on the title of a popular early 2000s TV show, and declares "Everybody Hates Vivek."
- Hello, Goodbye: The amount of attention given to DeSantis, Haley and Ramaswamy means that
the other five folks on stage are largely afterthoughts. That's not good news for any politician, but it's particularly
bad news for Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, as they are in serious danger of
missing the second debate. Burgum is OK on donors, thanks to the $20 bribes he's been handing out (more below), but he
hasn't gotten any qualifying polls. He needs to be at 3% or better in at least two national polls and at 3% or better in
one national poll AND two early-state polls, and there's no indication he can pull off either feat. Hutchinson, for his
part, is way short on both the donors and the polling. So, assuming Trump boycotts again, we could well be down to a
half-dozen for the next debate.
- The Real Winner, Part I: It's sort of become a cliché that debate commenters, looking
to be at least a little bit creative, award "wins" to people (or groups, or movements, or inanimate objects, etc.) who didn't
even participate in the debate. That said, sometimes the shoe fits, and so there were a lot of pundits yesterday who asserted
that the real winner of the debate was Donald Trump. The
argument
is simple: Nobody did him any damage, nobody did anything to make themselves a more likely challenger to his throne.
- The Real Winner, Part II: There was also a pile of op-eds arguing that the real winner of the debate
was... Joe Biden. The
argument
is pretty much the same as with Donald Trump; none of the candidates did much to scratch the President's armor, none of them did
anything to elevate themselves as any sort of future challenger to him.
- Keeping Score: If you would like a more black and white breakdown of the debate, then here's a chart
of the various winners/losers pieces we could find. Left-leaning outlets are in blue, right-leaning in red, centrist and
international in beige. We're only including "wins" and "losses" for the eight people who were actually on stage:
So, this method gives us a clear Haley win, as well, along with a bunch of middling performances, a rough night for
DeSantis, and three "See ya later" scores. Of course, there's only one vote that's likely to matter, and that's the last
one among the right-leaning sources.
This has already been a lot of debate stuff, so we'll either run reader comments as part of the mailbag, or perhaps
next week. We got some very good stuff, and want to be able to give it the proper amount of attention.
Meanwhile, debate #2, set for Sept. 27 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, is right around the corner. (Z)
This item appeared on www.electoral-vote.com. Read it Monday through Friday for political and election news,
Saturday for answers to reader's questions, and Sunday for letters from readers.
www.electoral-vote.com
State polls
All Senate candidates
