Republican U.S. presidential candidate and Governor Chris Christie speaks during the Republican U.S. presidential candidates debate sponsored by ABC News at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire February 6, 2016. “And the fact is that when you talk about your Hezbollah sanctions act, you weren’t even there to vote for it …”
Advertisement
For the last eight years, conservatives have alternated between two competing theories on why they so strongly disapprove of Obama’s presidency: One is that Obama, lacking sufficient governing experience before entering the Oval Office, is simply incompetent, unable to manage affairs at home and constantly out-witted by foreign leaders.
Kasich, who has staked his White House hopes on New Hampshire, offered a more moderate view on immigration, though one that’s unpopular with many GOP primary voters.
While the Republicans clashed on issues like abortion and torture, the concerted effort to take down Mr. Rubio dominated the debate, The New York Times reported. He glistened with sweat and stumbled through some of his answers, often falling back on rote responses that Christie mocked.
He wasn’t the only governor, past or current, who came across well, though.
Bush, Rubio’s one-time mentor, soon chimed in.
Mr Rubio has sought to deflect criticism of his relative inexperience and the comparisons it draws to President Barack Obama. “We got someone who divided the country up”.
Cruz, “with an eye to February 20”, catered his answer to South Carolina’s potential caucus-goers. As of midway through the debate, Rubio had the highest share of conversations on Twitter with 25 percent, followed by Trump at 22 percent and Cruz at 19 percent.
While Iowa shook Trump’s grip on the Republican field, he has led New Hampshire preference polls for months and the state is still seen as his to lose in Tuesday’s voting. “That is downright wrong”, Mr Bush said.
With the exception of the moment when the crowd booed Trump during an exchange with Jeb Bush over eminent domain and stacking the audience with supporters brought in by the Super PACs backing him, he was unwaveringly in charge. They expect you to plow the snow. “How tough is it to take property from an elderly woman?” When the crowd booed, he said, “that’s all his donors and special interests out there”.
Having defied political gravity with an unconventional campaign, Republican front-runner and novice politician Donald Trump broke another ironclad rule nine days ago: He skipped the debate ahead of the nation’s first primary contest over a tiff with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, the scheduled moderator.
So far, pretty much on topic, right?
In a fiery debate three days ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump also battled with rival Jeb Bush over the use of eminent domain to seize private property and called for a compassionate approach to those who might lose their health insurance if Republicans repealed Obamacare.
“I couldn’t even imagine taking a mom or dad out of a house when they haven’t committed a crime since they’ve been here, leaving their children in the house, that is not the kind of values America believes in”, Kasich said.
“We can’t get that legislation passed”, Rubio said of the bill that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the USA illegally.
“It is not leadership to continue to try something that has no chance of happening”, Rubio replied. Conant said the senator expected to take fire from several other candidates.
“I’ve done now over 100 town hall meetings, and I’ve loved every second of it”, Kasich said in his closing remarks. He went on to pledge to use “whatever enhanced interrogation methods we could to keep this country safe”. “A lot of things happened”, Trump said Friday during a rally in SC.
The Iowa results, apart from shaking up the race, also gave the candidates something new to quarrel over.
Carson said Saturday that the actions of Cruz’s campaign were an example of “Washington ethics” as he tried to portray himself and not Cruz as a true outsider candidate.
“Ben is a good and honorable man …”
“My father and her mom divorced when she was a little girl and she was angry her whole life”, Cruz said. When this transpired, I apologized to him then and I do so now.
Advertisement
“It may not change the race that much”, said Bruce Haynes, founding partner at Purple Strategies, which conducts polls in New Hampshire.
