The prime-time debate in Cleveland on Thursday will feature the top candidates in five national polls selected by the network.
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Those include business mogul Donald Trump, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and Sens.
Rick Perry is out of the big show. Lindsey Graham, former New York Gov. George Pataki and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. Bonus points to those candidates who offer substantive policy ideas for health-care reform, rather than one-liners crafted to wind up on YouTube.
Fox News and Facebook will host the first GOP presidential primary debate Thursday in Cleveland, Ohio. Surveys from Bloomberg, CBS News, Fox News, Quinnipiac University and Monmouth University were averaged. In a Tuesday interview, Trump said he’s been defying expectations all his life.
Mitt Romney walks on stage during a break in a Fox News debate on September 22, 2011 in Orlando, Florida. “I think they can remember each other’s last names”, an aide to one of the presidential candidates said afterward. But we already know who’s going to be the star of the evening.
The commission understood the power of the debates and anxious so much about providing legitimacy to outsiders that they all but guaranteed the debates would remain only for the Republicans and Democrats. But other candidates who need a surge of momentum might benefit from some direct attacks. And since he can see the White House from his home in central Ohio, his last chance in the national political spotlight is shinning bright.
Stuart Stevens, who was a top adviser to the 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, wrote on Twitter, “Have to say the “40 Year Old Virgin” version of this NH forum was more fun”. But it wasn’t enough for Perry.
“The problem is that the viewers will make their judgments about the candidates they can see”, Jillson said. “It’s unfortunate for Rick because this time around, it’s hard to make a first impression the second time“.
Perry’s absence from the main stage eliminates Trump’s most outspoken antagonist, and the only military veteran in the field.
For the former governor, the pre-debate forum was an opportunity to boast of his gubernatorial record securing the border and turning Texas into a job-creation juggernaut. John McCain, who was shot down over Vietnam, held as a POW and tortured – seems only to have made Trump stronger (as, ahem, I had predicted).
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Perry has called out Trump, saying he is “a toxic mix of demagoguery and nonsense”, especially for his characterization of Mexicans entering the U.S. illegally as “rapists”. But Kasich’s compassionate image is oversold: the feds offered to let hungry adults in high-unemployment Ohio get food stamps beyond a time limit – Kasich refused that for urban counties and most of the state (while accepting it in some rural counties). “It’s the minor leagues”.
