Mitch Perry
The immediate reaction as most Americans hit the sack Wednesday night from the political cognoscenti was that Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were the big winners from Wednesday night’s two-hour GOP debate from Boulder, Colorado.
The big losers? Jeb Bush and CNBC.
That sentiment seemed to congeal Thursday morning.
“For most of this year, Rubio and Cruz have been lurking in the background,” wrote the Washington Post’s Dan Balz. “On Wednesday night, they broke out into the open, delivering strong and forceful performances in a raucous and rambling Republican debate marked by squabbling and sharp elbows. Both Rubio and Cruz have won modest plaudits for their performances in the first two debates, but there was a demonstrable difference in what unfolded on the stage at the University of Colorado. They outshone Donald Trump and Ben Carson, the leaders in the polls, and Rubio overshadowed his onetime mentor, former Florida governor Jeb Bush.”
“Two likely effects of tonight: Rubio & Cruz seem more plausible (even likely) as finalists & Christie replaces Bush at bottom of 2nd tier,” tweeted the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol.
Meanwhile, the reviews on Jeb Bush have been brutal, with some ready to offer last rites.
“It was do or die,” wrote Slate’s Jamelle Bouie. “And Bush died. The debate clock tells the whole story; next to Sen. Rand Paul, who fell to the bottom, Bush had the least speaking time of any candidate onstage.”
Although Bush is being blasted for bringing up Rubio’s shaky voting record in the Senate, much less attention is being paid attention to his remark about getting Congressional Democrats to go along with spending cuts. Bush said that,” You find a Democrat that’s for cutting taxes- cutting spending 10 dollars,” he said, “I’ll give them a warm kiss.”
Former president George H.W Bush once told America to read his lips. On Wednesday night his son told Democrats to pucker up, ” wrote the Telegraph’s David Lawler. “Mr Bush was asked at the start of the debate what his greatest weakness was, and he answered that he was impatient. So too are dwindling supporters remaining in his camp. With yet another poor debate performance, he may have sealed his presidential chances with a warm kiss of death.”
Rubio getting the best of Bush on that early exchange on his voting record was fascinating.
“On Wednesday night, Rubio didn’t just school Bush in the art of the debate,” writes the Boston Globe’s James Pindell. “It was like Rubio was playing a new video game, and Dad walked in the room confused at how the controls worked.”
“And in their body language, the surprising story of the campaign seemed to unspool frame by frame, revealing the frustrations of Mr. Bush, awkwardly trying to adapt to modern sound-bite politics, and the talents of his young challenger, whose stage presence and confidence seem almost effortless, wrote the New York Times Michael Barbaro.
Bashing the media has been a staple of conservatives for decades, but the attacks on the panelists en masse were unprecedented.
In 2012, Newt Gingrich‘s ex-wife came out with some disparaging remarks about him as he began to challenge Mitt Romney in the polls. When CNN’s John King brought the issue up at a debate, Gingrich ripped his head off, electrifying a South Carolina audience.
That incident repeated itself multiple times yesterday, with Rubio, Christie and Donald Trump all taking bashes at CNBC panelists.
But nobody delivered the goods on this issue better than Ted Cruz.
“The questions asked in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media,” Cruz said at one point. “Everyone home tonight knows that the moderators have no intention of voting in a Republican primary.”
Cruz later went tete-a-tete with John Harwood, a CNBC contributor and New York Times (and former St. Pete Times) reporter who conservatives were bashing as lead moderator even before the debate took place.
“Congressional Republicans, Democrats and the White House are about to strike a compromise that would raise the debt limit, prevent a government shutdown, and calm financial markets of the fear that a Washington crisis is on the way,” Cruz said. “Does your opposition to it show you’re not the kind of problem-solver that American voters want?” CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla asked the presidential candidate.
“Let me say something at the outset,” the Senator from Texas said. “The questions asked in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media.”
“This is not a cage match. And you look at the questions — Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen? How about talking about the substantive issues,” Cruz said to huge applause.
The idea amongst conservatives is that this was the worst moderated debate ever.
“This is the most appalling performance by the moderators that I can remember seeing in a debate,” said syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Fox News after the debate. “They were overreaching, they were getting in the way. They were in the end obnoxious and I think what they did is they were able to set themselves up as the foils for the Republicans. So I think it actually strengthened the field and made them look better…I don’t think this is a corporate decision. I think the panelists were all flaming liberals. I don’t know who it was who said none of you is going to be a voter in the Republican primary. And it showed. I mean this is just a bias. And also the lack of self-restraint, the arrogance, interrupting and it was also disorganized, it was not well done.”
And what about the men who really are the front-runners – Donald Trump and Ben Carson?
Most commentators indicated that they held serve, and did nothing to “hurt themselves,” as the saying goes. Trump spoke for only nine minutes. He didn’t commit any questionable statements, but he wasn’t the dominant force of the previous two debates.
Carson seemed better, for what that’s worth, than his two previous performance.
“The winner of the atrocious CNBC debate was Dr. Ben Carson,” wrote Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon. “He came into Boulder on the upswing: taking the lead in Iowa polls and in one national poll, doing well in fundraising, and connecting with enthusiastic crowds. Nothing happened onstage to slow his momentum. Indeed, nothing happened at the CNBC debate to change the overall trajectory of the GOP race for president. So Carson wins — but so did Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.”
