The Truth and Nothing but the Truth about the Debate

The Truth About the Republican Debate

 The View from the Middle

As I’ve watched the coverage of the recent Republican Presidential debate, it has reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite historical figures, Abraham Lincoln.  Abe once said, “If you look for the bad in people, expecting to find it, you surely will.”  If you read the New York Times headlines or watched the women of The View, you would get a distorted perspective of what happened on Wednesday night. 

In what I can only describe as the height of hypocrisy, Michelle Collins actually criticized Carly Fiorina’s looks, suggesting that her smile made her look “demented”.  Joy Behar quickly followed that absolutely absurd comment by saying that Ms. Fiorina’s face would make a good Halloween mask.  Wow!  Aren’t these the same women that skewered Donald Trump for making a much less obnoxious statement about Carly?

So if you are looking for a truthful review of the debate, you can’t rely on the New York Times, The View or any of the rest of the left-leaning media.  They enter with a skewed perspective and they are literally “looking for the bad” in all conservatives, even women!!  So if you want the truth, you need to come to The View From the Middle, and here it is.

To be honest, I have been disappointed with the divisive, demeaning rhetoric of the first two debates.  I’m more of a Reagan “build a big tent” moderate and believe there should be no sniping inside the tent.  In this debate I finally saw some unity and some actual support between the candidates.  The fact that they were united against the hapless CNBC moderators is irrelevant.  We need unity among the Republican candidates as much as we need unity among the American people.

And it all started with what Ben Carson described as the “Cruz” missile.  Ted Cruz, who I will declare as the big winner of the evening, laid into the CNBC moderators for their biased, disrespectful and combative questions to the approval of the audience and all open minded people across the country.  At that moment he defended Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump as he castigated the moderators.  I can only hope that this will change this entire primary election process and not just this debate.

Marco Rubio was another big winner.  He defended himself well against a small attack by Jeb Bush but he also finally exposed a couple of truths that that the country needs to face.  First, he called Hillary Clinton a liar by using her own words.  She lied to the American people about the cause of the Benghazi attack while she told the Prime Minister of Egypt the truth.  He also described the mainstream media as the “ultimate super PAC” of the Democrat Party.  Maybe we can shame the media into being non-partisan.  That assumes that they have any conscience left.

Chris Christie showed again that he is prepared, smart and works well on his feet.  I loved it when he told John Harwood that, “even in New Jersey” what he was doing was rude.  I actually thought Christie won the second debate but he was not able to use that performance to make a surge in the polls.  We’ll see if he can do better with Wednesday’s effort.

A final winner, in my book, was Carly Fiorina.  I love her message about our huge, complicated, inept and corrupt federal government and think it should be the main battle cry for all conservatives.  She also won the microphone time battle despite the fact that she is 5^th, 6^th or 7^th in the polls, depending on which one you look at.

Trump did fine, and I think I see some maturing from him as a political candidate.  He used 3^rd grade bullying tactics less often (but I wouldn’t suggest going out of the way to antagonize him) and has added more substance to his arguments.  He also actually complimented some of his opponents.  Ben Carson also did fine.  I love his message of unity and civility, but he got the 3^rd lowest speaking time despite his #1 or #2 position in the polls.  He is not a natural “interrupter” and he may have to work on appropriate ways to get his fair share, but I also blame the CNBC moderators and their total lack of control for the imbalance.

The two biggest losers were Rand Paul and Jeb Bush.  Neither made campaign-ending gaffes, but both needed stellar performances to keep them in the news and in the minds of voters, and they didn’t get it.  Their messages were not memorable and they received the two lowest levels of speaking time in the debate.  Jeb will surely hang on for the next debate because he has so much money, but Rand Paul might find himself a victim of a culling process that the field badly needs so that the major candidates can get their full messages out to the people.