“Kasich may have earned his ticket off the main debate stage”, Charlie Spiering of Breitbart noted. Ben Carson defended his integrity. The Milwaukee event, which focused more on policy than personality, didn’t fit his style as well.
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The audience twice booed Trump during the debate. Marco Rubio batted back a question over his relationship with former mentor – now rival – Jeb Bush.
That’s good news for leading outsiders Trump and Carson, who have surprised the political world with remarkable staying power atop national polls.
“I’ve built an unbelievable company worth billions and billions of dollars”.
This talk of drafting Romney is absurd for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that there’s absolutely no evidence that Trump, Carson and Cruz voters would abandon their preferred candidate and rush headlong to support the failed 2012 candidate who was universally judged to have run an incompetent content-free campaign that was devoid of any mention of the issues that concern those voters.
Later, when Fiorina interrupted Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Trump criticized her for interrupting.
“I know it makes for an interesting Vine video, but it really wasn’t anything of meaning”, he said.
A few Clinton supporters warned against dismissing Trump too quickly, given today’s political climate.
In another sign of GOP support for Trump’s strict immigration policies, more poll respondents reacted favorably to a comment by the real-estate mogul. Carson has faced media scrutiny over whether he lied about getting a West Point scholarship and other accounts of his life, and Trump hammered him over the weekend for it.
Yet the expected showdown between the two men never materialized Tuesday.
None of the other candidates could claim double-digit support.
Afterward, Trump was asked if he’d been let off the hook. He referred to “pathological anger” again in telling about lunging at his friend, a knife blade breaking off when it hit the boy’s belt buckle.
Bush caused panic within his campaign and among his donors with a weak performance in last month’s CNBC debate.
Bush’s best moments came early in the night as he showed a feistier side with moderators, who ignored him for the first 15 minutes. “The type of thing that allows for positive responses, allows for candidates to differentiate themselves”.
Rubio responded, “We can’t even have an economy if we’re not safe”.
“And the people of Iowa believe him”, Trump said incredulously.
In the undercard debate, candidates fought for relevancy.
Low-pollers Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee however failed to make the cut.
Bush won an endorsement Wednesday from Bob Dole, the former longtime Kansas senator and Republican presidential nominee who will serve as the campaign’s chairman for veterans.
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“That’s the way I’ve been trained to do it, so now I’m learning the new art of acknowledging the question, being respectful of the questioner of course and then answering what’s on my mind”, he added.
