Fox Business GOP Debate thoughts

As I have "poor man TV" (aka over-the-air broadcast), I watched the GOP debate last night online. Here are some of my thoughts.

Ranking/grade

• 1-T: Cruz (A) and Rubio (A)
• 2: Trump (B-)
• 3. Christie (B-)
• 4. Bush (C)
• 5. Kasich (C)
• 6. Carson (D)

For the first two-thirds of the debate, I thought Ted Cruz was winning big. He obliterated Trump on the "birther" question - the first candidate to clearly and thoroughly beat Trump in an exchange so far this election cycle. He failed to get time to respond to Marco Rubio's late shotgun blast, and that took wind out of his sails.

Rubio had some good moments early, but seemed to flail in the middle of the debate. He lost his exchange with Christie, but can take consolation  in the fact that Christie pretty much lied through his teeth on everything in that back-and-forth. He finished with a late but very strong attack on Cruz.

I think the debate was a Cruz-Rubio tie, possibly slight edge to Cruz.

Donald Trump exceeded my expectations. He had a masterful reply to the "angry" question, and had the best possible delivery of his "New York values" rebuttal. This was by far his best debate -- in fact, he continues to improve debate after debate.

Chris Christie was strong early, but as I mentioned above, blatantly lied about his record in the exchange with Rubio. He also has this terrible habit of interrupting substantive policy discussions with belittling comments about "the Senate floor", and "people don't care about this". Um, excuse me, but some people want to actually find out.

Jeb Bush was typical Jeb - bumbling and stumbling. I can't for the life of me figure out why he is so awful at speaking. He trips over words, sounds and looks awkward, and otherwise acts as if he's never done public speaking in his life. He'll get going on an intelligent and well-stated point, only to stumble through the ending. While he didn't have a disastrous debate, he needed an excellent performance, and didn't get close to it.

John Kasich was more coherent in this debate, and unlike every time before this sounded somewhat conservative at times. One of his (many) problems is that he constantly brings up how long he's been in politics (i.e. in Washington "during the Cold War"... which is an eternity ago in today's political world). He's probably the most tone-deaf candidate this cycle. This time, he managed to avoid last place.

Ben Carson bombed. Debates are not his strong point to begin with. He seemed caught off-guard by several questions, almost as if he was daydreaming. He had one or two good answers, but most of his responses were rambling. Especially on foreign policy, he sounded like he was reciting facts that he recently learned... but that everybody else knew already (in this debate, it was EMPs, dirty bombs, and cyber attacks). His campaign is floundering, and the reasons for his campaign to continue are dwindling fast.

Those are my thoughts. Leave a comment with yours.

Seven qualify for Fox Business debate; Paul, Fiorina demoted

Thursday's Republican presidential debate on the Fox Business Channel will be the smallest debate of the 2016 cycle for the GOP, as only 7 candidates made the cut.

Candidates qualified for the debate in one of two ways: be in the top six nationally in an average of the most recent live phone surveys, or be in the top five in Iowa or New Hampshire. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush all made it in by being in the top six nationally, while John Kasich got in by being in the top five in New Hampshire.

Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina, both present in the last debates, polled too low to make it in through either method. They will join Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum in the "undercard" debate, although Paul has said he will skip the junior debate altogether, as his "first tier campaign" deserves the "first tier debate".

Tuesday's GOP Debate: 8 in primetime, 4 in undercard

The FOX Business Network/Wall Street Journal GOP Debate on Tuesday will be featuring eight candidates in the primetime debate, and four in the undercard debate (aka "the kid's table"). This is the first debate this cycle with candidates being bumped off the main stage (Huckabee and Christie).

From FBN:

The four polls used in the average were conducted by the following organizations: Fox News, Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP, Quinnipiac University, and The Wall Street Journal/NBC News. To qualify for the prime-time debate, a candidate had to score 2.5% or higher in an average of the four most recent national polls. Candidates scoring under that had to receive at least 1% support in at least one of the four most recent national polls to qualify for the 7 p.m. debate. No online or automated (IVR) polls were used in compiling the data.

Here's the main event lineup (9e/8c), along with the candidate's average in the qualifying polls:

• Donald Trump (25.3%)
• Ben Carson (24.5%)
• Marco Rubio (11.8%)
• Ted Cruz (10.0%)
• Jeb Bush (5.5%)
• Carly Fiorina (3.0%)
• John Kasich (2.8%)
• Rand Paul (2.5%)

In the 7e/6c JV debate:

• Mike Huckabee (2.3%)
• Chris Christie (2.3%)
• Bobby Jindal (0.5%)
• Rick Santorum (0.5%)

Lindsey Graham, George Pataki and Jim Gilmore did not qualify for the undercard debate.

In addition to airing on the Fox Business Network, the debate will be livestreamed for free online. Additionally, for those who subscribe to cable or satellite but don't get FBN, Fox is temporarily "unbundling" the channel for subscribers to be able to watch.

Personally, I think a smaller debate stage is good. Ten people sharing the limited debate time doesn't allow enough time to delve into issues and get enough input from all the candidates. I think the race is starting to coalesce around four candidates (Trump, Carson, Rubio and Cruz), and most of the other candidates really need to consider dropping out.