The Big Show

I have to say that I'm not a big fan of how Fox is handling this first debate.  For one thing, I don't understand why they felt the need to do one real debate with the top ten candidates in the polls and then one much less real debate with the other seven.  It kind of seems like we're saying that if you aren't polling in the top ten in August, you don't have a real chance to win.  That might be true for some people, but it still seems a little early for that kind of weeding out. 

Why not do two debates and just randomly split the field?  Or, since we're doing more than one debate anyway, why not split the field into three debates randomly so everyone gets a chance to actually talk.  You could run them on three consecutive nights.  How would this not be good television for Fox?  Why am I the only one around here thinking with my brain?

I suppose the concern is that if you did three debates on three consecutive nights, the people in the third debate would have an advantage, having heard what the people in the earlier debates said and how the audience responded to it.  Maybe they'd even have a night to poll test some stuff.  Honestly though, the chances of any of these people saying something they haven't said 100 times before is pretty minimal. 

Also, Fox is a news network.  Can't they exercise some editorial judgment here and not just blindly go with the polls?  We all know Ben Carson and Ted Cruz aren't going to be President.  Meanwhile, some of the guys at the kiddie debate were at least serious people, who probably will also not be President, but still.  You don't have to like him, but Rick Perry was the Governor of a huge state for 15 years, and tonight he debated at 5PM because Ben Carson and Donald Trump are polling well with people who couldn't find the United States on a map of North America.  Fox is making me feel sorry for Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.  My two least favorite Ricks.  I don't like this.  Let's just get started, OK?

Tonight's debate is being moderated by Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly.  Wallace is the closest thing Fox has to a real journalist, and I'm not entirely sure why he can't just moderate this debate on his own.  The other two...well...Megyn Kelly has done this before at least, but that doesn't mean she did it well.  And Bret Baier?  You'd have a better debate if you replaced him with an actual bear.  Where's Shepard Smith when you need him?

8:50PM - It appears that between the first debate and now, everyone on Fox agreed that Carly Fiorina won the first debate.  That was not what I saw, but I have to admit that Brit Hume probably knows what Republican primary voters like better than I do.

8:53PM - Fox's pre-debate panel appears to be getting paid by the number of times they say Donald Trump's name.

8:56PM - Megyn had to call the candidates out four or five times before they actually came out to the stage.  Looks like nobody went to rehearsal.

8:57PM - Just a super weird start.  All ten guys came out and stood in a line in front of the podiums while Megyn and Bret peppered them with questions like "Are you nervous?" and "What do you think of this crowd?".  Then Bret finally let them go to their podiums.  Then Megyn said these guys are probably all glad Carly Fiorina isn't here.  Seriously, did I watch the wrong debate this afternoon?

9:01PM - Fox has been asking viewers to submit questions via Facebook that they can use during the debate.  I always hate that.  You have a whole network full of supposed journalists, but your game plan involves taking questions from internet trolls.  Every network does this, and it is always stupid.

9:04PM - Bret starts by asking the candidates to raise their hand if they will not make a pledge to support the eventual winner and not run an independent campaign if they lose.  Trump's hand went up immediately, saying that he needs to respect the winner.  Rand Paul jumped right on him saying that Trump is used to buying politicians so he's already hedging his bets (in case the eventual winner can't be bought, is I assume Rand's point).  Rand should have won that exchange pretty easily, but the crowd's reaction was sort of mixed.  I think it scares Republicans that Trump is bringing people into the process that are loyal to Trump but not the party, or reality.

9:08PM - Solid minute from Rubio about how this election can't just be about resumes, and he'll make the Republicans the party of the future.  Make a note to keep an eye on Rubio, he may actually know stuff.

9:10PM - Bush says "In Florida, they called me Jeb because I earned it".  I don't know what that means, but I guess Jeb is a compliment in Florida. 

9:11PM - Megyn was trying to ask Trump about his habit of calling women fat pigs and disgusting animals.  His response was 1) be completely dismissive of Megyn 2) say he doesn't have time for political correctness and 3) threaten to stop being nice to Megyn.  There you go.

9:14PM - Ted Cruz still looks like a muppet.

9:15PM - Bret asked Christie about New Jersey being an economic catastrophe.  Christie responded "if you think it's bad now, you should have seen it when I got there".  Yikes.  Then Christie rattled off a list of Republican economic policies that he put into place in New Jersey.  After years of deficit cutting and regulation busting, New Jersey is a dumpster fire.  Ummm, Chris needs to re-group a little.  Somebody get him a meatball sandwich.

9:18PM - Huckabee suggests using the 5th and 14th amendments to outlaw abortion under all circumstances saying "the Supreme Court is not the supreme being".  Roe v Wade happened in 1973.  Same sex marriage supporters should make a note of that.  That argument is far from over for people like Mike.

9:19PM - Rand is having fun pointing out that ISIS rides around in a billion dollars worth of U.S. Humvees.  Rand then suggested that maybe we shouldn't be handing out weapons all over the middle east.  What an interesting idea.  Maybe don't give everyone weapons.  Can we do that?

9:21PM - John Kasich is pretty good at debating.  He successfully defended his use of the Medicare expansion and then talked about providing care for mentally ill people.  Put Kasich in my maybe column for now.

9:23PM - Jeb proposed fixing immigration instead of using it as a wedge issue.  Trump hasn't insulted anyone in a few minutes so he has to be getting pretty punchy.

9:24PM - Trump, "if it weren't for me, you wouldn't even be talking about illegal immigration".  OK well that's not true, but that never stops Donald.  Wallace asked him twice what specific evidence he has that the Mexican government is sending criminals over the border.  In a shocking twist, Trump was not able to provide evidence. 

9:31PM - Wallace keeps trying to ask about illegal immigration.  Nobody seems to want to answer him, except to say that everyone is in favor of building a giant wall.  Rubio finally pointed out that someone could dig a tunnel under the wall.  Put Marco in the maybe column too, even though he's still in favor of building the giant wall even though he openly admits walls are pretty easy to conquer.

9:35PM - Ted Cruz is not for amnesty.  He is very much for hearing the sound of Ted Cruz' voice.

9:36PM - Christie was apparently appointed to his job in the Bush administration on September 10, 2001.  Sounds like Chris would be a hell of a good luck charm.  I wouldn't go to Atlantic City with him.

9:38PM - Rand says we need to use the 4th amendment to get warrants to collect records from terrorists and not collect records from other people.  Chris is not a fan of getting warrants.  Chris also appears to be employing the Guliani style "September 11th is the answer to every question" strategy.  I don't recall that working out too well for Rudy.

9:40PM - Apparently multiple people, including military Generals and the State department, have told Ted that you can't defeat ISIS until you change the situation on the ground in Iraq and Syria so it's not so conducive to radicalization.  Ted thinks the idea that there's not a military solution to ISIS is nonsense.  You can see why I find the idea of a Cruz Presidency slightly problematic.

9:42PM - Jeb admits that he wouldn't have gone into Iraq knowing now that the intelligence was faulty, rejecting Megyn's argument that since people died in Iraq it isn't OK to say it was a mistake.  That was pretty good.  His answer to what he would do now was less good.

9:44PM - Ben Carson says "I wasn't sure I was going to get to talk again".  Like Kelly, Wallace and Baier, I had pretty much forgotten Ben was there.  He gave an answer similar to what Bobby Jindal said earlier, saying that everything will be OK if we just stop fighting politically correct wars and let the military do whatever they want. 

9:46PM - Trump wanted to quickly point out that he was always opposed to the Iraq War.  Good for him.  Then he said that single payer health care would have worked in another age in America, whatever that means, but now we need a private system.  I can't imagine Trump actually knows anything about health care, except that he hates having to give it to employees.

9:48PM - This is why Trump is doing well.  Sometimes he says things that are true.  He explained his donations to many politicians, Democrats and Republicans, including Hillary Clinton, by saying that if you give them money they do what you want, and that's a broken system.  Can't argue with him on that.

9:51PM - The question to Huckabee was "Is the government to big for anyone to shrink it?".  Huckabee started by saying no, but then talked for a minute about all the ways the federal government is too big.  I think Huckabee thinks no means yes.

9:52PM - Carson appears to be advocating for a flat tax, based on his feeling that the bible supports a flat tax.  It'll be fun to have Ben around for a while.

9:53PM - Jeb said a lot about education, but all I heard was "challenging the teacher's unions and beating them".  Yes please!  I'm very pro-union, but teachers unions are the absolute worst.

10:00PM - Kasich was asked how he would fight Hillary Clinton's argument that Republicans want to oppress women and take the country back to the past.  He said he would respond by balancing budgets.  I think he skipped a step or two.

10:01PM - Same question to Carson.  First he slipped in a doubt that Hillary will actually be the candidate (slick move), then he said he would educate people about how progressives are really causing the problems in this country.  Any political operative will tell you that if you're educating, you're losing.

10:03PM - Wallace asked Jeb how he would get us to 4% growth.  His answer mostly boiled down to cutting taxes and making a wish.  I'm officially worried about Jeb.

10:04PM - Walker keeps bragging about how he's been elected 3 times in Wisconsin.  He keeps leaving out the fact that that's because they tried to recall him twice. 

10:06PM - Wallace asked Christie if Huckabee is lying when he says he can save social security without cutting benefits or raising the retirement age.  Christie said "No, he's not lying, he's just wrong."  This is why people like Christie.  That's both honest and a little funny, and also true.  I'm glad he took that sandwich break.

10:07PM - Huckabee still says he can save social security without cutting benefits or raising the retirement age, you just have to institute his fair tax.  Huckabee makes a good point, which is that people didn't opt into social security.  The government started taking their money when they started working and they didn't get a choice, so it's not their fault the system is in trouble.  All true, but life's not fair and magic tax plans won't fix social security.  People are going to have to deal with a raised retirement age eventually.  That's just the way it is.

10:11PM - Wallace pointed out that four Trump companies have gone bankrupt, but Trump responded that he's never personally gone bankrupt.  Wallace asked him about one specific deal where his lenders lost over a billion dollars and 1,100 jobs.  Trump basically said that the lenders deserved it and everybody in Atlantic City goes bankrupt.  I have to give Wallace some credit.  He really has been trying to call Trump out on his bullshit, but Trump just keeps responding with louder bullshit and Wallace only has two hours. 

10:14PM - I know these guys genuinely believe that cutting corporate taxes will help working people.  It's just that there is zero evidence to support that hypothesis and it's really frustrating.

10:16PM - They just showed a clip of the earlier debate.  One thing I didn't notice before, Carly Fiorina's hair appeared to be dyed to match her jacket.  That's an odd choice.

10:17PM - Rand made a legitimate point about the Iran deal.  He thinks the Obama administration gave up too much too early.   You can disagree, but that's a perfectly reasonable critique and certainly better than the "I would tear up that deal on day one because freedom" answer we're getting from everyone else.

10:24PM - Question to Jeb about him being on the board of the Bloomberg foundation, which gave money to Planned Parenthood.  He says they never had a debate about the budget and he was just on the board because of Bloomberg's commitment to education.  OK then.

10:25PM - Rubio swears he's never supported a rape and incest exception to his anti-abortion stance.   Just tell me how this isn't big government.  I just want an explanation.

10:26PM - Question to Trump..."when did you actually become a Republican?".  He says he's evolved on abortion and he's pro-life now.  He said it very angrily, as he says all things all the time.

10:28PM - Can we all just agree that everyone here is anti-choice?  Do we really have to go through this every four years.  We all know the Republican nominee will be anti-choice.  Why do we have to compete every election cycle to see which guy is the most anti-choice?  Seems like a poor use of time.

10:30PM - Kasich just got applause for going to a same sex wedding.  The home crowd cheered pretty loudly for him.  John stays in the maybe column, but this probably means Fox will declare him the clear loser of the debate.

10:32PM - Rand says he's opposed to the government invading the church.  Luckily, so is the government, so we're all good there.

10:35PM - Racial issues question to Walker.  He looks terrified.  He says police need better training and we should treat everyone the same here in America.  Score one generic answer for Scott.

10:38PM - Trump just recommend buying stock in Iran.  I think he was kidding but I can't say I'm 100% sure.

10:39PM - Bret asked Cruz if Russia and China are cyber terrorists.  Bret was just baiting Ted, and boy did Ted take the bait.  Has Ted mentioned that he opposes the Iran deal?  He does.

10:40PM - Republicans keep pointing out that Iran released hostages the day Reagan was elected.  If Iran released some hostages the day Obama was elected these guys would have marched on Washington and screamed about how Iran sees Obama as an ally because he's a secret Muslim.  I'd love to see a Republican debate where nobody is allowed to mention Reagan.  It would last 7 minutes before they all ran away.

10:42PM - Scott Walker would apparently send weapons to anyone who wanted them.  Can we just have one 10 minute discussion about the history of arming everyone who claims to be on our side at any one point in history?  Just once.  Please?

10:43PM - Huckabee feels that the purpose of the military is protecting Americans and not being nice to transgender people.  I'm glad President Huckabee feels like he'd be OK as President turning away willing and able military volunteers.

10:45PM - Rand says it would be better if Israel was independent and we didn't have to keep sending them money we don't have.  That's the exact same argument Republicans make about poor people, but for some reason Republicans don't like it when you replace poor people with Israel.

10:46PM - Christie wants to make the Navy bigger again.  He's really worried about the Spanish Armada.  You never know when they'll show up.

10:50PM - A Facebook questioner asked if any of these guys have received specific instructions from god.  Please someone say yes.  Please!

10:51PM - Sadly, even Cruz didn't take the bait on the talking to god question.  Disappointing.

10:52PM - Kasich just talked for a minute about uniting the country, listening to other people and not leaving anyone behind.  I'm a hard maybe on Kasich right now.

10:54PM - Rubio says god has blessed the Republican party with some great candidates when the Democrats can't even find one.  Then he talked about reforming the VA.  Rubio may have something for the rest of these guys.  Keep an eye on him.

10:56PM - Carson says he doesn't talk about race that much because he's a neurosurgeon.  I thought that was a pretty good line.  Ben's not going to win, but he's pretty funny sometimes.

Summary of the closing statements:
Kasich - He talked about having a lot of experience.  I think John may be a pretty good candidate, but he needs to work on being less boring.
Christie - Chris' dad worked in an ice cream plant.  That explains some things.  He again mentioned that he was appointed to the Bush administration on September 10, 2001.  Seriously, I wouldn't stand next to him anywhere.
Paul - Rand made an electability argument and said he's a different kind of Republican.
Rubio - Rubio wants expand the American dream for more people.
Cruz - Ted gave one of those nonsense day one plans.  Booooo!  Ted's first day would have approximately 910 hours in it.
Carson - Carson says that everyone is bragging about the things that they were the only one to do, and then says "I'm the only one to separate Siamese twins."  Then he says he thought he was the only one to take out half a brain, but when he gets to Washington he may find that someone beat him to it.  Seriously, Ben's funny.
Huckabee -  Huckabee tried to be funny.  Huck isn't funny though.
Walker - "I'm a guy with a wife and two kids and a Harley".  Ugh. 
Bush - Jeb tried to jam his whole platform into 30 seconds.  Always a mistake.
Trump - I think he just called America a loser.

Man, that was long.