Republican Candidates' Debate #5: The Day After
We usually do a rundown of debate takeaways from various sources, but we don't think that's useful this time, since
they all say the same thing: Nikki Haley and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) spent 2 hours attacking each other and being
nasty. So, we're just going to move into our usual rundown of 10 debate-related storylines from across various media
outlets:
- Ratings: The ratings for the Haley-DeSantis debate were abysmal. They drew an average of
2.5 million viewers. That's bad, as compared to debates #1 (12 million viewers), #2 (9.5 million), #3 (7.5 million) and #4
(4.1 million). But what's even worse, we would say, is that the Trump town hall that Fox counterprogrammed
drew
4.3 million viewers. Hard for the second-tier candidates to make up ground if most of the people they are after
are tuning in to see the frontrunner.
- Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: On that point, The Bulwark's Tim Miller
points out
that the rapprochement between Trump and Fox is complete. Fox tried to quit Trump, but nobody else stepped into the
void, and now they need him. And Trump wants and needs the free PR, since he's spending most of his money on lawyers.
And while the Fox program was called a "town hall," the two "journalists" who moderated it (Bret Baier and Martha
MacCallum) were so Trump-friendly, it was basically a campaign commercial.
- Even with Softballs, Sometimes You Miss: Although the Fox event was set up to be
a Trump showcase, so much so that DeSantis
whined
that it was a case of "massive gaslighting," Trump still managed to step in it a couple of times. He conceded
that his businesses were taking in millions from foreign entities while he was president, but insisted that he
"earned" the money. At least one Republican member of Congress, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN),
described
Trump's admission as "disturbing." Meanwhile, Baier and MacCallum gave Trump an opportunity to practice his answer
on abortion. And while he did OK for a while, walking a line between being anti-choice and pro-winning elections,
he couldn't help
but start freestyling, veering strongly into harsh anti-choice rhetoric. It's not going to play well with
independents, moderate Republicans, suburban women, etc., if he keeps doing that.
- Shrewd Strategy: Even with a couple of flubs, it's clear that Trump's choice to skip
the candidates debates was strategically correct, since the other candidates were unwilling to tear into him in his
absence. Yesterday,
The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal
and
Fox
all had pieces making this same point. (Note: Sorry, the first two links are behind paywalls, and the third is from Fox.)
- It's the Little Things, Part I: After each debate, CNN has longtime debate coach Todd Graham
award grades to the participants, based not on their political points, but on the basic precepts of proper debating. In
his assessment
of Haley-DeSantis, Graham gave Haley a B. He thinks she struggled to set the right tone early on, but that she eventually found
a good blend of facts, policy, and criticisms of DeSantis. As to the Governor, Graham gave him a D- for speeding through
his various points without giving them time to settle in, and for abandoning substance in favor of soundbites in the
second hour of the debate.
- It's the Little Things, Part II: Meanwhile, Politico hired former FBI agent Joe Navarro to write
an assessment
of the two candidates' body language. Navarro was largely unimpressed with DeSantis, observing that his habit of
grinding his jaw left-to-right conveys insecurity and anxiety, while his unwillingness to look Haley in the eye
conveys weakness and submissiveness. Navarro's review of Haley was more mixed; he asserts that her broad, sweeping hand
gestures convey strength and confidence, but her habit of holding up her pen in hopes of getting called on by the
moderators makes her look weak.
- It's the Little Things, Part III: And finally, Slate wrote an
entire piece
about DeSantis' smile, which most people tend to find off-putting. According to experts in facial expressions, there are
reasons for that. His smile is obviously fake; he does not produce the wrinkles at the temple characteristic of a
genuine smile (also known as a Duchenne smile). He also tends to smile at the wrong times (a few seconds later than he
should) and to hold his (fake) smile for too long. If that were not enough, his smile is asymmetrical, and he has the
habit (presumably not conscious) of sometimes sticking out his tongue when he smiles. On a visceral level, the tongue
bit, for viewers, reads as "I'm about to vomit."
- We Said That, Too, Part I: In
our writeup
of the debate, we observed that one of the things that made it so unpleasant is that it was 2 solid hours of negativity.
Nothing hopeful, nothing uplifting, nothing that a person could connect with. Quite a few writers agreed with us. For example,
Matt Lewis, writing for The Daily Beast, had
a piece
headlined: "The DeSantis vs. Haley Debate Didn't Give Us a Single Human Moment: Neither candidate showed even a sliver of humor, authenticity, or likability."
We even both used the word "sliver" to describe what was missing, in even the smallest amount.
- We Said That, Too, Part II: We also suspected that the audience in Iowa was stacked with partisans
of the two candidates. It would seem we were on to something; yesterday, the DeSantis campaign
announced
that it would be handing out debate tickets (and, if needed, airline tickets) to supporters who would like to attend the next debate, in
New Hampshire.
- This Is the End?: That said, people planning to attend the debate in New Hampshire might not want
to make any firm plans. The National Review
points out
that Debate #6 might well be canceled, either because DeSantis will have dropped out by then (see below), or because Haley might
decide it's strategically sounder NOT to give DeSantis another shot at taking her down. Given that both Donald Trump and Joe
Biden are leery of debating, the Review suggests that the Haley-DeSantis affair might well have been the final debate of
this cycle.
Meanwhile,
The Hill's Jeffrey McCall
and
Reason's Liz Wolfe
both had pieces yesterday arguing that these presidential "debates" have veered so far away from actual debates,
and there are so many of them these days, that maybe it's time to rethink the whole concept. McCall wants the
remaining Republican candidates' debates to be canceled, while Wolfe thinks maybe the whole thing should be
scrapped forever.
Those were the most interesting storylines we saw. Meanwhile, although it's a little silly with a two-person debate,
here's how various outlets had the winners and losers. Well, really, the winner and the loser; we're not going to include
faux winners and faux losers thrown in so as to pad out the articles:
In short, the candidates didn't help themselves very much on Wednesday night, if they helped themselves at all. (Z)
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