It’s highly questionable whether anyone emerged as the victor in Thursday’s Republican presidential debate in Detroit, though the candidates’ spinmeisters would all quibble with that. There was one clear loser: the Grand Old Party.
Advertisement
Viewership numbers for this week’s debate will be released later Friday. Insults and interruptions overwhelmed sober discussion.
But the rivals said they would back Mr Trump if he is the Republican presidential nominee in November.
The debate was the candidates’ first face-to-face gathering since Super Tuesday nominating contests this week gave extra momentum to the Trump campaign but did not knock out his rivals. No new information was imparted, no truly new arguments advanced.
That set the tone for the rest of the evening, with Rubio and Cruz trying to take on Trump and stop him in any way, even as they declined to take hits against each other.
Cruz, poking fun at Trump for interrupting, told the businessman, “Breathe, breathe, breathe”.
Trump dismissed Romney as “a failed candidate” and an “embarrassment”. Bush, who has a stronghold in Florida, hasn’t stepped back into the race to endorse Sen.
Groups backing Texas Sen.
But here’s something important to keep in mind: Donald Trump will nearly certainly be in the same position as Cruz and Rubio if he loses OH and Florida on March 15.
Rubio argued that, ‘If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, we are going to have a party that’s divided, we’re going to have a party that has to somehow justify to itself why it’s voting for this man.
At some point these people will have to stop focusing on how to stop Trump and acknowledge he is not only winning, but is doing so for the most rational of reasons: he is clearly conservative voters’ first choice, whether they like it or not. Many party leaders and elected officials have pledged in recent days not to support Trump – causing the #NeverTrump hashtag to trend – if he does secure the party’s nomination. He struggled to defend contradictory statements he has made in the past. If Trump wins, they will all get what they deserve, even though the nation will not.
Then, on Thursday night, Mr Rubio and Mr Trump came face to face on Fox News’ Republican debate, when the issue of personal attacks among candidates came up. Here are the key moments.
He also suggested that Trump would have a negative impact on markets and foreign policy. Given the pattern of the entire campaign and of the past three debates, he probably did nothing to undermine the support he already has.
Trump bit right into the question.
“Donald Trump whipped the Establishment and it is too late for the limp GOP Establishment to ask their mommy to step in and rewrite the rules because they were humiliated for their impotence”, Alex Castellanos, a top GOP strategist and at one-time anti-Trumper, said in an email on Wednesday when he called for Republicans to rally around Trump.
Buyer’s remorse within the GOP, however, continues to fan chatter about finding an off-ramp to the Trump nomination at the July convention in Cleveland, though with no prominent national leader yet taking charge. Suddenly, there has been open talk of an open convention, with strategies that might thwart the wishes of pro-Trump primary voters and force the convention to consider alternatives. But he has yet to show he can truly consolidate conservatives in the way he needs to.
Rubio asked Trump why he does not bring his clothing-making operations to the United States from China and Mexico if he is so interested in bringing jobs home, a central tenet of his unconventional campaign.
“Here’s what I know”, he said.
Advertisement
But Mr Rubio persisted: “The answer is he’s not going to do it…”
