Rick Santorum, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal at the Republican undercard debate in Milwaukee.
Advertisement
After thriving at the last FOX News debate back in August, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiornia has tried to regain momentum.
Christie was in the undercard debate for the first time, but it was clear he doesn’t intend to make go home. “But in the real world it’s about results”.
Jindal and Christie have a long-running feud stemming from a 2012 contest between the two to lead the Republican Governors Association. That mostly elicited praise from the analysts, even when Christie’s responses were used to deflect attention from the weaknesses in New Jersey’s financial health spelled out by Jindal, who aggressively pointed out the wide gap between Christie’s claims about what he’s done for the state’s economy and the reality.
The candidates also took turns arguing that they are the ones best positioned to defeat likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“We can’t afford to elect a big-government Republican”, said Jindal.
Christie said New Jersey government spending has declined except for health spending, which he blamed on Obamacare, and pensions. For the most part, though, he appeared uninterested in engaging Jindal. “If I go to New Jersey, they will call me lots of different things”, Christie said to Jindal. Christie also said he would “fire a whole bunch of IRS agents”.
On taxes, Huckabee pitched his “fair tax” plan that would replace income and investment taxes with a national consumption tax.
“Let’s not be a second liberal party”, Jindal said, talking about Christie.
Huckabee was asked by moderator Sandra Smith to reiterate his position whether he thought America should allow refugees fleeing from the war-torn Syria to seek asylum inside the United States. “If politicians say they’re going to be conservative, say they’re going to cut spending, but they don’t do it, why should we send them to D.C.?”
Huckabee defended his view that it is wrong for the federal government to reduce Social Security and Medicare benefits. There were times during the debate, Kasich sounded more like a Democrat. All of the Republicans took the opportunity to talk about whatever they wanted. When Wall Street Journal Washington Bureau Chief Gerald Seib had the nerve to ask the candidates to name one Democrat they could work with in Congress to move their agenda forward, the candidates ridiculed and then ignored the question.
Advertisement
Santorum said he visits a manufacturing company once a week and finds open jobs with no one to fill them. The GOP front-runner fought back against recent media criticism and attempted to compare his situation to the controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton and the Benghazi terrorist attack.
