It was the night that former surgeon Ben Carson was expected to try and cement his front-runner status within the Republican field, as the presidential hopefuls held their third debate. The candidate, who is scheduled to appear Thursday at the Nugget Hotel and Casino in one of his first post-debate appearances, recently fell behind fellow political novice Carson in several major Iowa and national polls. But the soft-spoken candidate seemed unshaken by the heightened attention, even when quizzed on his proposal to eliminate all tax deductions and loopholes. And as for his campaign’s chagrin at CNBC for his lack of speaking time, that feels to me like a smokescreen created to distract people from his poor performance. “You don’t win or lose an election in one debate”.
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CNBC spokesman Brian Steel responded to the criticism after the debate, saying in a statement: “People who want to be president of the United States should be able to answer tough questions”.
But what was painfully obvious after two hours of the debate, is that none of the candidates has a detailed plan to create more jobs.
Almost 86 percent of the 76,000 H-1B visas issued for workers in computer occupations in 2014 were for people from India, according to a Computerworld analysis of government data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Mr Graham, the South Carolina senator, got the most laughs, especially when he said Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders “went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon and I don’t think he ever came back”. I’m not running for him.
“My great concern is that we’re on the verge of picking someone who can not do this job”, he said.
“Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six year term and you should be showing up for work”, said Bush, who is struggling to right his campaign after being forced to slash spending in response to slower fundraising. And if Bush, who has fallen into the low single digits in the polls, is teetering on the edge, Rubio’s meticulous counterstrike may have been the blow that does Bush in.
“This is not a cage match and you look at the question: ‘Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain?”
‘Ben Carson, can you do math?’ From there, he listed the questions candidate were asked and said, “How about talking about the substantive issues people care about?” The audience responded with huge applause before other candidates followed suit.
That was also the case for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, though he jokingly compared the bloated federal government to a runaway blimp making news Wednesday and later pointed out that he was wearing a Trump tie. “Trump hasn’t really stood out tonight”, observed Evan M. Bonsall ’19, a self-described Democrat.
The New Jersey governor has another problem, too, and a bad one for a former prosecutor: Telling the truth. We have – wait a second, we have $19 trillion in debt. “Fantasy Football! We have ISIS and al Qaeda attacking us and we’re talking about fantasy football?”
The Ohio governor, fighting to gain traction as a moderate, charged out of the gate with a screed aimed at a few of his rivals. “We don’t need to be led around like prize steers”.
The senator from Kentucky, struggling in the polls and with fundraising, came out attacking both parties for driving up the debt, pledging to filibuster the compromise debt limit bill.
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Interrupted by a badgering CNBC moderator John Harwood while answering another question, the irascible Christie snapped: “Do you want me to answer or do you want to answer?”
