THIS LATEST DEBATE JUST PROVES HOW FAR THE GOP HAS DECLINED

…The Poll Leaders at the CNBC GOP Debate

 

“Finger Pointing” was the focus of the latest GOP debate.

 

Well, the third GOP debate hosted by CNBC is over and one comment can be made about almost every candidate on the stage.

 

"Most all of them acted like whining little snot-nosed kids." 

 

Those few candidates that had low poll ratings, they showed up for the so called “Kid’s Table” forum before the debate.  They acted much more presidential than those that argued through the 2 hour debate.

 

One political pundit wrote right after the debate, “Has there ever been a more peevish pack, a more petulant populace, than the 2016 Republican presidential contenders?”

 

“The Donald” did come across as if he is seriously realizing that he is slipping in the polls.  But he complained at the end of the 2 hours, “These folks at CNBC” wanted a “three and a half”-hour debate.”  However, one of the CNBC moderators, John Harwood responded with, “Just for the record, the debate was always only going to be two hours.”

 

One issue that became very obvious is that whichever Republican light-weight gets chosen as the nominee had better get lots of sleep and eat their Wheaties before they debate the final Democratic nominee.   That nominee could be Hillary Clinton and one must remember that she stood up for 11 hours at the Benghazi hearing and was in total control for the whole event.

 

It was pretty amazing as to how poorly almost everyone on the stage did last Wednesday night. 

 

The two that did the best, but were not great, were Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX).  I say they were not great because they did their best only because they were better prepared for responding to the direct attacks from the other candidates.  But the policies they did offer were not very realistic.

 

Senator Rubio was attacked by Jeb Bush for not showing up in the Senate to vote. Rubio’s counter was to say that Bush was complaining only because “someone has convinced you [Jeb] that attacking me is going to help you.”

 

The moderator then stated that Rubio’s local newspaper that had previously endorsed Rubio, had recently written an editorial calling for the senator to resign.  This was because Rubio has missed so many Senate votes. Rubio responded by complaining that “It’s actually evidence of the bias that exists in the American media today.”   (Ah yes, it's the media's fault that Rubio wasn't doing his job as Florida's Senator....)

 

As for Senator Cruz, CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla had asked the Senator a question about the debt limit. Instead of responding to the question, Cruz replied, ”The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media.  How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?”  He then said something about the questions offered at the previous Democratic debate were only “fawning questions".  However, there was no suggestion as to what “substantive issues” Cruz actually wanted to discuss…?  Instead, Cruz used up his time without saying anything about the debt limit.  When the moderators finally decided to move on to another question, Cruz just whined out: “You don’t want to hear the answer.”

 

Other than his shot at Senator Rubio, Jeb Bush virtually didn’t show up anywhere that night.  Is this the beginning of the end for his campaign?  I would suspect his donors and backers are asking the same question.  The headlines about Bush after the debate have not been very friendly for the former Florida Governor.  The conservative Bill Kristol in a later interview said he expects Jeb's campaign will end in a week or two. 

 

Dr. Ben Carson was pretty flat for the night, and the moderators really went after his tax plan.  The moderator stated the plan was based on a 10 to 15% flat tax that would force at least a 40% cut in government.

 

“That’s not true,” Carson said, but offered no evidence.

 

“That is true. I looked at the numbers,” the moderator informed him.

 

Carson responded with, “When we put all the facts down, you’ll be able to see that it’s not true. It works out very well.”

 

With the moderator shaking her head “no”, Ohio Governor Kasich added an obvious point, “This stuff is fantasy.”  But Kasich continued “Folks, we’ve got to wake up.”   Then Kasich argued that, “Trump’s immigration proposals to deport 11 million people! Those are equally fantastic.”

 

As expected was Trump’s response to Kasich: “His poll numbers tanked . . . and he got nasty.”  No one responded to the actual issues.

 

The moderator then asked Trump about his promise to cut taxes by $10 trillion without increasing the deficit. Trump was then asked whether this was “a comic-book version of a presidential campaign.”

 

Did Trump have an answer?  As usual no answer was offered.  All Trump said was, “It’s not a very nicely asked question.”

 

Quintanilla asked the front-runner Carson about his 10-year involvement with a controversial nutritional-supplement company. “I didn’t have an involvement,” Carson said.  Then in a lame response, Carson went after the media like Senator Rubio had done by complaining, “That is total propaganda, and this is what happens in our society: Total propaganda.”

 

When Quintanilla pointed out that Carson was on the supplement company home page. Carson responded that didn’t matter.

 

It was a legitimate point by the moderator, but then the audience started booing and they moved on.

 

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had thrown a few jabs at the Democrats and Hillary Clinton, but when Harwood interrupted New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to clarify his answer about energy, Christie told Harwood he was being “rude.”  That was the last we heard from Christie on any item of substance.

 

For the most part, everyone on the stage in the debate was in a total “blame-game” stance against everyone else for causing the nation’s woes.  There were very few substantive or serious suggestions for the country in the future. 

 

As an example of the blame attitude of the whole GOP, when the debate ended, the Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus tweeted that “CNBC should be ashamed of how this debate was handled.”

 

It wasn’t the best debate for sure, but it wasn't the CNBC network that had the biggest problems.  To see the big problem, the Republican Party just needs to look in the mirror.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2015