Dec.08

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GOP Candidates' Debate; the Day After: We Used to Be Friends

It's been a day since the latest GOP candidates' debate, which means anyone and everyone has had time to weigh in. And the dominant theme of the coverage of the meetup between Nikki Haley, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie is how nasty the meetups have become. Anyhow, let's do a rundown before we consign yet another meaningless event to the dustbin of history.

To start, a half-dozen sets of takeaways:

The New York Times:

• The 'fellas' hit Nikki Haley hard
• Ron DeSantis kept pulling his punches on Trump
• Chris Christie had his strongest debate to date
• Megyn Kelly played hardball
• Vivek Ramaswamy had his Alex Jones moment

The Washington Post:

• Trump's absence overshadows the debate
• Haley faces an onslaught and holds her ground
• Everybody hates Ramaswamy
• Christie goes on offense
• Candidates voiced hostility toward immigrants and foreign powers

The BBC:

• Everyone takes on Nikki Haley
• Chris Christie pummels Trump—and his rivals
• Diminished Ramaswamy hurls conspiracies and insults

Foreign Policy:

• The old school and new school of GOP foreign policy are still brawling
• Border security will be a top issue in 2024
• Is all this irrelevant without Trump?
• Foreign policy will actually matter a lot in 2024

The Hill:

• Knives out for Haley
• DeSantis has a strong night
• Christie takes fiercest stand yet against Trump
• Other GOP rivals pull their punches against front-runner
• Debate was nasty

Fox:

• DeSantis and Ramaswamy pile on Haley over ties to billionaire donors
• Christie calls Ramaswamy an "obnoxious blowhard" as he defends Haley
• Ramaswamy holds up a sheet of paper accusing Haley of corruption
• Haley and DeSantis continue their months-long spat on China
• Christie lays into DeSantis on question about former President Donald Trump's age

The dominant theme is that Haley had a target on her back. Other recurrent themes include: (1) Vivek Ramaswamy is a giant jerk, (2) Chris Christie had a good night, and (3) It's all pointless if Trump isn't there and isn't even a topic of conversation.

Moving along, here is a rundown of winners and losers, per outlets of various stripes:

The aggregate view is rather similar to our view: Christie won, Haley did OK, DeSantis was mediocre, and Ramaswamy was a train wreck. Let us hope that Ramaswamy can't make the cut for the next debate.

And finally, here's a rundown of 9 debate-related storylines:

1. Dismal Ratings: Between the fact that the "debates" have grown tiresome, and the choice of the second- or third-tier NewsNation as host and broadcaster, the ratings for the fourth debate were—not surprisingly—very poor. Over the course of the 2 hours, just 4.1 million people tuned in. To put that in some context, that's about the same as an average episode of The Rookie: Feds, Abbott Elementary, Accused, or MPU—shows you may, or may not, have even heard of. And 4.1 million is about half of what 60 Minutes draws, while it's roughly 20% of the audience of TV's most popular program, Sunday Night Football.
   
   
2. Debates #5 and #6: The fourth debate was barely over before the RNC announced that the next two debates will both be hosted by CNN. It would seem that burying them on NewsNation was not the best strategy, if you want people to actually watch. Debate #5 will be held on January 10 at Drake University in Des Moines, IA, and candidates will have to reach 10% in three approved national and/or Iowa polls. Debate #6 will be held on January 21 at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, NH, and candidates will have to reach 10% in three approved national and/or New Hampshire polls. At the moment, Haley and DeSantis have qualified for both, while Ramaswamy and Christie aren't even close to making it.
   
   
3. Republicans Hate Vivek: In our write-up, we noted that Vivek Ramaswamy's shenanigans weren't landing, even with the (presumably) Republican-leaning audience. The response on Thursday affirmed that, as numerous GOP politicians and pundits shared their view that his nasty approach is a real turn-off to voters.
   
   
4. Fox Hates Vivek, Too: Meanwhile, the dominant theme on Fox's coverage yesterday was that Ramaswamy is a sanctimonious jerk, and that he should drop out of the race post-haste. This came up over and over.
   
   
5. The Vivek Memes: We said they were coming, and they did. Here are a few specimens:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   He's mostly crazy, but maybe a few of his ideas do have merit.
   
   
6. Kid Gloves: If you watch the debates, you're not imagining it that while the candidates should increasingly be taking the wood to Donald Trump, they are actually getting less and less likely to do so. Politico did an analysis, and these are the numbers they came up with:
   
   

   Debate	Attacks on Trump	Attacks on Other Candidates
   1	10	16
   2	9	16
   3	6	26
   4	9	28

   
   If not for Chris Christie, some of those numbers in the second column might be close to zero.
   
   
7. The Best Debate Speech... Ever: In our write-up, we said we were impressed with Christie, and in particular his willingness to take on Donald Trump. But even we weren't as impressed as Todd Graham, the speech and debate coach who comments from that perspective for CNN. According to Graham, "Christie might have just given the single most important speech in presidential debating history. It was certainly the finest." Pretty high praise from a fellow who has watched over 8,000 debates at various levels.
   
   
8. How Far They've Fallen: Meanwhile, in a piece for Slate, Ben Mathis-Lilley observes that it's quite an indictment of the GOP when Chris Christie, the fellow who brought you Bridgegate, Beachgate, and countless other scandals, has become the party's paragon of honesty and reason.
   
   
9. Behind the Scenes: About midway through the debate, as it went to commercial, cameras showed Christie walking over to the moderators and chewing them out. Megyn Kelly revealed yesterday what the issue was: The former governor was angry he wasn't being given enough speaking time. This is not an unreasonable complaint; given the moderators' unwillingness to enforce turn-taking, and DeSantis'/Ramaswamy's willingness to seize the microphone, Christie was indeed ignored for extended periods. And when the dust had settled, the Smarmy One had nearly 23 minutes of speaking time, while the Sanctimonious One had 21. Haley had just 18, and Christie brought up the rear with 17.
   
   

That's it for 2023; no more debates until 2024. And if that's not a great Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, winter solstice and/or Festivus gift, we don't know what is. (Z)