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Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Less a Debate Than a Series of Stump Speeches

Before last night's debate the question was whether the Fox Business News moderators 'got the message' after the way the CNBC moderators were attacked.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/what-to-look-for-in-tonights-gop-debate.html

This evlatuion by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus speaks loud and clear that the answer was a hell yes.

"The RNC chair later praised the Fox Business moderators for treating the candidates "with fairness and respect."

“Debates need to focus on the issues, and that goal was accomplished tonight," Priebus said in a statement. "Our candidates, not the moderators, were at the center of tonight’s debate, and they were all treated with fairness and respect. Thanks to a well-run debate, the country was able to see our diverse field of talented and exceptionally qualified candidates exchange ideas for how to reinvigorate the economy and put Americans back to work."

CNBC hosted a Republican debate last month that was widely panned by the media and harshly criticized by the candidates themselves. Priebus tweeted at the time that the peacock property "should be ashamed of how this debate was handled."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reince-priebus-fox-business-cnbc

Josh Marshall's neatly sums it up: Lord, that was a mess!

"This debate is the logical outcome of the blow up after the CNBC debate. CNBC is a generally right leaning network on economic issues. But simply pressing the candidates to answer questions or noting when they're making demonstrably untrue claims made them liberal. So now we have a debate structured around letting candidates say absolutely anything - because scrutinizing candidates is liberal. This leads to having half the debate framed around how strong financial regulation leads the biggest banks to get bigger and bigger and how we need to put in place new policies to prevent banks from getting this big. And the best place to start is to repeal Dodd-Frank. As David said at one point tonight, it's impossible to find any way into this conversation because it's all theology and self-referencing assertions."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/good-lord-that-was-a-mess

Politico has the same reactoin-which means that this is a common meme in terms of a reaction.

Fox Business plays it safe

Moderators douse fireworks and keep attention away with lofty questions and easy follow-ups.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/fox-business-plays-it-safe-215745#ixzz3rCW9td14

I did find it got awful boring in the early stages enabling the candidates just to repeat the usual GOP boilerplate about cutting taxes and regulations and taking the government out of the way.

"The result was a debate that was less an encounter between challengers than a series of stump speeches, as candidates took advantage of the long 90-second answer times and often talked past the times-up bell tone, with the moderators seemed reluctant to rein them in.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/fox-business-plays-it-safe-215745#ixzz3rCWihfrW

So it seems that as usual all the GOP whining about the media, worked. In particular, Rubio was handled with absolute kid gloves.

"RUBIO GETS EASY TREATMENT AT DEBATE: The New York Times offers this funny observation on how the debate moderators treated Rubio:"

"Mr. Rubio was not only able to avoid being drawn into the contentious immigration debate, but also repeatedly received questions that allowed him to answer with versions of his stump speech. Even he seemed unable to believe his good fortune when he was asked to make his case against Mrs. Clinton. He chuckled for a moment before unspooling a well-rehearsed argument: why he can prosecute a “generational” case against her."

"Of course, Cruz and Rubio are both 44, so the former could presumably make the same argument. Rubio’s “generational” argument, obviously, is aimed at Jeb Bush and John Kasich."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/11/11/morning-plum-marco-rubios-clever-immigration-straddle/

Ben Carson's biography was also handled with kid's gloves.

And Ben Carson's biography gets a pass:

"The Associated Press observes:

"Coming into the debate, Carson was expected to face tough questions about certain discrepancies in his life story, which has served as a point of inspiration long before he became a presidential candidate. Yet moderators touched only lightly on that topic."

"One wonders if that has anything to do with the outpouring of criticism heaped on the CNBC debate moderators or Carson’s endless complaining about how the liberal media is out to get him."

Still, be careful what you wish for. Sometimes you get it and it's the worst thing you can imagine. As the New Republic notes, the GOPers got the debate they wanted but so did the Democrats.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123426/republicans-got-debate-they-wanted-so-did-democrats

This oh so gentle treatment hardly is going to prepare them for Hillary Clinton. 

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