The Fox Business Network Debate

What a difference 13 days makes.  After a debate two weeks ago that pitted the Republican presidential candidates against the CNBC moderators, eight of the GOP contenders tonight had a debate where they actually debated each other rather than the folks at Fox Business Network (FBN) who were asking the questions.

We all knew going in, after the two previous outings, that the FBN moderators would go out of their way to ask substantive questions.  Not once was one of the candidates asked or provoked to attack one of the others. This wasn’t a barroom brawl like the first three debates, it was much more substantive, although many of the candidates found opportunities to muck it up with each other anyway.

The two front-runners (Donald Trump and Ben Carson) mostly played it safe, especially Carson, likely to their benefit. I don’t see anything from this debate that would cause droves of their current supporters to have second thoughts. Carson was the one candidate who never butted his head in to any of the other discussions.  He laid back, the perfect gentleman, answered the questions and displayed more substantive knowledge (on issues both foreign and domestic) than he had in the previous debates.

Trump was more subdued tonight except for one moment where he declared “why does she keep interrupting everybody?” (regarding Carly Fiorina) after which the audience booed.  I will say that Trump displayed more substance tonight than he had in the previous outings.  If you were a lifelong Republican who had just suffered amnesia and watched this debate having no pre-conceptions whatsoever about any of the candidates, the Donald seemed quite reasonable on all issues but his deportation plan.

As for the current second tier candidates, once again, Marco Rubio delivered an excellent performance.  He is slowly but surely crafting his message as one of aspiration, one of a younger generation (as Obama did seven years ago, it should be noted), one designed to respond to the rapidly changing economic landscape, but also one of an extraordinary grasp of foreign affairs.  Many people predicted that Jeb Bush or Donald Trump would once again “go after” Rubio but they both laid off the Florida Senator. In fact, it was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul who threw the one punch at Rubio, questioning whether his ideas were conservative (Rubio had talked about increased military spending and a tax credit for families). It was an interesting exchange (although Paul’s isolationism is out of the mainstream among most Republican voters). Interestingly, it was Texas Senator Ted Cruz (who had another good night) came over to Rubio’s side on this topic:

“We have to defend this nation. You think defending this nation is expensive? See how expensive it becomes not defending it.” — Ted Cruz

Still, I thought Paul did better in this debate than in either of the others: there were several fairly preposterous tax plans proposed by the candidates but Paul actually explained his fairly well.  Paul also had a good moment when he noted that China was not part of the TPP trade deal that Trump was trashing while on his usual rant about China taking advantage of the U.S.

Trump was also on the ropes in the beginning when talking about his plan to deport 11 million illegal immigrants. Both John Kasich and Jeb Bush jumped in to call out the absurdity of The Donald’s immigration plan. The audience seemed to be on the side of Kasich and Bush; they were both sensible and they were both saying what needs to be said in a general election race but I just don’t think that’s what the GOP base wants to hear right now.

I like Kasich a lot (and I would like Jeb too if he had a different last name) but I think they’re both competing right now for “I’m experienced” and “I’m a compassionate conservative” lane and that lane is only wide enough for bicycles right now. Neither man helped their cause tonight.  Kasich and Bush are trying to bring a level of reasonableness to this process: Kaisch tried to call out the absurdity of Trump’s deportation plan and the fiscal irresponsibility of some of the candidate’s tax plans. But he really fell flat on his face when challenging Cruz’ answer about a hypothetical question about whether he would bail out Bank of America if it were about to go under. Kasich made a comment that is drawing ire in the Twitter-sphere, saying that he would “separate those people who can afford it versus those people who are the hard-working folks who put their money in those institutions.”

Note to all candidates: tread very, very carefully if you challenge Ted Cruz.  He is a master debater and tough to beat in a one-on-one exchange.

Bush did better in this debate than in the previous ones but I just didn’t see anything that would cause an undecided voter to get into his camp. It’s interesting that, as the field starts to separate, the “main” debate of eight candidates contained three political outsiders (Trump, Carson, and Carly Fiorina), three sitting U.S. Senators (Rubio, Cruz and Paul) and just two governors (Kasich the current one in Ohio, Bush the former Gov. in Ohio). Normally we the people like governors as presidents (Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush 43) but not this year.

The one person I haven’t commented on yet is Fiorina: once again, she was mostly superb, showing a full grasp of a variety of issues.  I will say this though: Fiorina is starting to show that she’s a bit rehearsed.  I’ve heard the same lines now in more than one debate.  Of course, virtually nobody pays attention to this stuff as much as I do so I doubt many voters noticed.  But it’s hard to not pay attention to this: Fiorina has knocked it out of the park in every debate and continues to poll under 5%. I still think that ultimately this is an audition for the vice-presidency and she would be my first choice for that position right now.

So what will happen between now and the next debate, which isn’t until the middle of December?

I would expect Trump and Carson to remain in the lead, probably neck and neck for awhile, with Trump getting the angry vote and Carson the evangelical vote (that’s overly simplistic of course but those are the primary constituencies).

I would expect, however, that both Rubio and Cruz will continue to chip away at the Trump-Carson lead, possibly more at the expense of low-polling Bush and Kasich rather than the high-flying front-runners.  Fiorina and Paul will probably hold serve in the low single-digits.

I don’t know what the state of Kasich’s campaign finances are, but his campaign is in trouble.  When I say that Rubio and Cruz will likely chip away at the Bush and Kasich supporters, I count myself among those chips.  From the beginning I’ve been a big fan of the Ohio Governor but I’m sad to say that I don’t see a path for the nomination for him. I’m looking at Rubio as my new #1.

A couple of things I’ll be looking at in the next few weeks:

1. Does Rubio start to earn endorsements from current members of the House and Senate?  He is looking like the “establishment” candidate now, the anti Trump-Carson.
2. Does Bush’s very well-funded super-PAC start to spend millions of dollars in attack ads against his former protege? I really, REALLY hope not.  To me this would be an unpardonable sin.
3. Who drops out between now and December 15 (the date of the next debate)?  Everyone will try to hang around as long as possible (hoping for a Trump-Carson implosion) but if you run out of money, you run out of money.
4. Does Carson hold his top-of-the-pack position or start to fade?  I thought he did well tonight but there may be a “fad” factor and the media is now out for his blood. There have been several ridiculous media attacks against Carson in the past week, attacks so flimsy that they only help him. But he is still largely an unknown and there will be a lot of investigative reporting on his life and story.  Since the whole rationale for his candidacy is his personal story, it is imperative for him that his credibility and trustworthiness don’t get tarnished in any way.

 

And finally, some quick thoughts on the under-card debate:

FBN decided to raise the criteria for inclusion on the two debates which put a little more heft in the first session, led by former main-stage participants Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee and rounded out by Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum. Gone were 0%-ers George Pataki and Lindsey Graham; the slightly smaller groups gave everyone a bit more time.

Most pundits expected Christie, a former prosecutor turned New Jersey governor, to dominate the Happy Hour debate and he had a mostly good night.  He was the one candidate who figured out from the beginning that the person to debate was not his fellow Republicans but Hillary Clinton.  He mostly spoke directly to the camera and displayed a much higher level of gravitas than the others.

For some strange reason Jindal, the sitting governor of Louisiana, seemed to think that he was in a one-on-one contest with Christie. He went out of his way to attack Christie’s governing record in New Jersey and made the case that most of his party was Democrat-lite. I don’t know how others reacted but I found Jindal’s continual hectoring of Christie to be off the point and made him look foolish.  He even got one or two boos from the crowd for his comments.  So maybe Jindal is trying to move up from 12th to 9th but he looked petty, small and Trump-esque without the charisma while Christie remained the adult in the conversation.

As for Huckabee and Santorum, it’s ironic that the two men who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 and 2012 have been relegated to also-ran status; they are each an asterix now.  Huckabee’s folksiness always plays well but I doubt he converted any new votes.  Santorum got a little too wonky sometimes and once or twice I didn’t know what he was talking about.

What was most notable for Huckabee and Santorum was the insanity of their tax plans.  Huckabee wants a “fair tax” on consumption only, with no income tax at all.  Yeah, like that won’t tank the government, it’s pie in the sky.  And Santorum, for all of his pious pronouncements about rebuilding America’s manufacturing and rebuilding the middle class, offered a 20% flat tax across the board on everything, which would be a tax cut for the wealthy and a tax increase for most of the rest of the USA.  Both plans sound good to the ill-informed but are fundamentally ludicrous when you peel back just one layer.  The same could be said, incidentally, about some of the tax proposals from the candidates on the main stage (Carson’s in particular).

Anyway, I would expect Christie to get a minor (very minor) bump here.  If he’s smart about keeping his campaign leaner and meaner than his own physique, he could hang around this contest long enough to be relevant in the event of a Trump-Carson implosion.  As for Huckabee, Santorum and especially Jindal, it’s time to do something else.

Thanks for reading.

Chris Bodig