For the first time since August, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore was back on a debate stage Thursday night after qualifying for Fox’s undercard contest. In addition to the prospect of some candidates dropping out after Iowa, fewer than 10 of them would qualify for the next debate February 6 in New Hampshire under criteria announced this week.
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Carly Fiorina lashed out Thursday night at Hillary Clinton, taking the Democratic front-runner to task over everything from Benghazi to her email scandal to husband Bill during the first of two GOP presidential debates.
“This debate was called the undercard debate”. The alternative is to put everyone on stage at the same time, which would be a mess; it’s been bad enough with the nine or ten on stage in the main debates with the undercards available. There were two huge problems with the Fox News early debate.
Santorum said he and his colleagues have been given scant attention in the wake of Trump’s rise, accusing the media of seeking to “segregate” the candidates, and “take Iowans out of the process”. “Certainly not”, Gilmore said. That could make Thursday’s debate on Fox News the last chance for a handful of candidates to prove to a national audience why they belong on the debate stage.
“The establishment thinks they own this country, the pundits think they own this country, the media thinks they own this country”, Fiorina said. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), saying he doesn’t “understand how anybody with IQ above plant life would honestly think we would be better off if we let government have all the private property and the government would dole out what it thought we should have”.
Gilmore had not appeared in Iowa to campaign until a week ago.
“This is not the place where I choose to begin my campaign”. “I don’t have time for side shows”, Gilmore told MSNBC.
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He also took a shot at Santorum and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who were both scheduled to appear at the Trump rally later in the evening. “I’m not about to go across and carry the coat for some billionaire”, Gilmore said. So has Huckabee, who won the contest in 2008.
