Disingenuous horse-pucky

Maybe the best thing you can say about last night’s debate is that the GOP candidates demonstrated they could get through two hours of mostly hostile questioning.

RNC chair Reince Priebus is getting a lot of grief this morning, with people contending he should never have agreed to have CNBC host a debate. Remember, before this cycle, any media entity could announce they were hosting a debate and the candidates decided whether they wanted to show up. This is how we ended up with 20 debates in 2012. The big change with the RNC-set schedule is that MSNBC didn’t get a debate at all. The next one is on Fox Business; after that it’s CNN again, Fox News again, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News/Telemundo -- with National Review participating -- then Fox News again, then CNN again.

...it’s fascinating that Marco Rubio gets a question about his personal finances long after that New York Times story generated scoffing and skepticism, while Hillary Clinton didn’t get a single question about donors to the Clinton Foundation and conveniently timed State Department policy changes.

...Because of this, Ted Cruz won the night when he took a rhetorical flamethrower to the moderators, spelling out the dismissive, DNC-talking-point-style questions they had posed to each candidate. He contrasted it with the comparative softballs the Democrats received from CNN. The audience in the hall agreed and judging from the reaction on Twitter, a lot of viewers at home were applauding, too. It was Cruz’s best moment of his campaign so far.

Besides that fantastic moment, Cruz just seemed to be dramatically better last night: His answers were concise, succinct, and direct; he hit the right emotional notes.

...Marco Rubio had the second-best moment of the night when he declared, “Democrats have their own SuperPAC, it’s called the mainstream media.” Jeb Bush and the CNBC moderators both came after him and there’s little sign they did much damage. What’s fascinating about the incoming fire is that technically he’s running a distant third. The fact that so many people are aiming for him is an indicator that people don’t think he’ll be a distant third for long.

Carly Fiorina was as good as the previous debate. (I like how her glare somehow spurred Harwood to give her a few extra moments at the end.) Her fade in the polls since the last one was one of the stranger phenomena of this cycle. She’s mastered this debate format; now she needs a venue where she gets more time and doesn’t get forgotten about for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. Also, she needs a way to stay in front of the cameras in between debates. “In your heart of hearts, you want to see a debate between Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina.” Yup.

Jeb Bush tried to attack Marco Rubio and I don’t think it really worked for him. Attacking doesn’t seem to be part of Bush’s natural instincts. Explaining policies, maybe, but not attacking. It’s difficult to run for president if you can’t attack a rival effectively, and just about impossible to come from behind if you can’t do that.

...Chris Christie had another speaking-directly-to-the-camera good night; we’ll see if this does much for his numbers in the coming weeks. “We’re seriously talking about fantasy football?” he asked incredulously towards the end of the night. A few moments later, when Harwood interrupted him, he zinged, “Do you want me to answer, or do you want to answer? Even in New Jersey what you’re doing is called rude.”

I wrote the original story on Ben Carson and Mannatech back in January. I thought the question was fair but mangled in its wording. The simplest explanation is that Carson didn’t know that much about the company, certainly didn’t know about the allegations of false advertising, and probably should have done more due diligence. Whether you think this is a deal-breaker for a presidential candidate is up to you, but in the grand course of Carson’s life, not doing enough research on a company paying him for speeches and taping some videos is pretty small compared to, say, separating those conjoined twins.

Having said that, Carson’s claim last night that he has no relationship with the company is disingenuous horse-puckey.

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