The biggest takeaway from the first Republican presidential debates: These people spend so much time inside the protective cocoon of conservative media, allowed to blame every problem or shortcoming on President Obama, that the slightest encounter with the sunlight of our fact-based world burns them to the bone.
Even the most basic policy questions are taken as shocking violations of the rules of public discourse with the GOP candidates painting themselves as the helpless victims of those big, bad reporters. From CNN’s Dylan Byers:
Republican presidential candidates tore into CNBC’s moderators at Wednesday night’s GOP debate, issuing the sharpest attacks on the mainstream media of the 2016 election cycle.
Sen. Ted Cruz accused the moderators of trying to instigate a cage match, Sen. Marco Rubio called the media a super PAC for Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump slammed the “ridiculous questions.”
What examples did they give?
Rubio, asked to respond to a Florida Sun Sentinel editorial that had called on him to drop out of the race, charged that it “evidence of the bias that exists in the American media.”
The Sun Sentinel is so biased against Rubio, it endorsed him for US Senate in 2010.
Later in the debate, Rubio declared that the mainstream media was so biased in favor of Clinton that it was effectively functioning as her Super PAC.
The media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton has been so thoroughly negative, Nate Silver reported that from July 24 to September 15, she had just one day of positive coverage compared to 29 days of negative coverage.
Let’s look at the most aggressive attack at the media during the debate from Ted Cruz. Does the question justify the attack?
QUINTANILLA: Senator Cruz. Congressional Republicans, Democrats and the White House are about to strike a compromise that would raise the debt limit, prevent a government shutdown and calm financial markets that fear of — another Washington-created crisis is on the way.
Does your opposition to it show that you’re not the kind of problem-solver American voters want?
CRUZ: You know, let me say something at the outset. The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. (APPLAUSE) This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions — “Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?” “Ben Carson, can you do math?” “John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?” “Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?” “Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?”
How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?
Quintanilla asked about the federal budget, and Cruz’s response is to … demand substantive questions? The candidates were “reduced to [an] argument that America’s main business news network is part of a vast liberal conspiracy and that asking for mathematically plausible tax policies is a form of bias,” says Matt Yglesias.
“The problem for Republicans is that substantive questions about their policy proposals end up sounding like hostile attacks — but that’s because the policy proposals are ridiculous, not because the questions are actually unfair,” writes Ezra Klein at Vox.
Journalists themselves enable these attacks by trying to prove they’re “objective.” If they stay silent, they let these absurd attacks stand. But if they push back, they risk revealing themselves as humans with feelings and opinions. If journalists would just be honest about their opinions & biases, they’d take away this line of attack altogether – who attacks Chris Hayes for being progressive or Brit Hume for being conservative?
All of this raises a final question Republicans will be equally unhappy to face: If these guys can’t handle even these mild questions from moderators, how are they going to stand on stage in the general election debates next fall and go toe-to-toe with Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? These biggest of wanna-be bullies may look like wimps under fire.
I want to hear the answers from the DEMOCRATS on the burning issue of Fantasy Football.
Does Hillary play? Are women able to assess the capabilites of a tight end?
Will Bernie demand that all prize money be divided equally between all player in a given week?
GOP candidates are asked entirely different questions. I heard a sound bite from Hillary before the debate, smug over how the GOP candidates aren’t talking about income equality and the middle class like she is. How can they talk about things they aren’t asked about.
BTW – has anybody asked O’Malley about how he feels about his crashing poll numbers?
Anderson Cooper’s FIRST question to Bernie Sanders – who’s second in the race! – was “How can any kind of socialist win a general election in the United States?”
And the FIRST answer in the GOP debate last night was Kasich ignoring the question and talking about something else entirely.
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“What is your biggest weakness?”
Funny how Silber came up on the other thread– at least Kasich responded to this question correctly, by ignoring it.
Maybe his weakness is an inability to answer stupid juvenile questions.
Usually, in these TV debates, the moderators ask serious questions and the candidates mostly give silly, made-up answers. This time around, silliness and taunting were lobbed from both sides.
“HARWOOD: What is your biggest weakness?”
“HARWOOD: Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?”
“HARWOOD: “…You have as chance of cutting taxes that much without increasing the deficit as you would of flying away from that podium by flapping your arms.”
Or this exchange:
“QUINTANILLA: You want to bring 70,000 [tax code] pages to three?
“FIORINA: That’s right, three pages.
“QUINTANILLA: Is that using really small type?
“FIORINA: You know why three?
“QUINTANILLA: Is that using really small type?
“FIORINA: No. You know why three? […]”
Or this question:
“QUINTANILLA: You’ve been a young man in a hurry ever since you won your first election in your 20s. You’ve had a big accomplishment in the Senate, an immigration bill providing a path to citizenship the conservatives in your party hate, and even you don’t support anymore. Now, you’re skipping more votes than any senator to run for president. Why not slow down, get a few more things done first or least finish what you start?”
Or this one:
“QUINTANILLA: So when the Sun-Sentinel says Rubio should resign, not rip us off, when they say Floridians sent you to Washington to do a job, when they say you act like you hate your job, do you?”
Indeed, wisely framed.
“QUINTANILLA: Well, do you hate your job?”
Or this one:
“HARWOOD: Governor, the fact that you’re at the fifth lectern tonight shows how far your stock has fallen in this race, despite the big investment your donors have made.”
Slap.
“HARWOOD: You noted recently, after slashing your payroll, that you had better things to do than sit around and be demonized by other people. I wanted to ask you —”
Which of course Bush interrupts.
“HARWOOD: Ben Bernanke […] said he no longer considers himself a Republican because the Republican Party has given in to know-nothingism. Is that why you’re having a difficult time in this race?”
And on it went. No wonder Cruz had the best line, turning the tables on the moderator. And I say this while being fully aware of the evils of Ted Cruz.
After Cruz, as if he gave the signal, all other candidates on the stage started striking back at the moderators. (Except for the clueless Jeb Bush, who is not quick on his feet.)
Can you imagine what went through these moderators minds when they picked the questions? Then reviewed them? Did they not think it will blow back?
The response in the press was predictable. The conservative rags blew up with anger, the liberal rags taunted the candidates telling them to stop whining. Even Dana Milbank, at WaPo, who is usually more level headed, said the questions were normal par for the course.
I think this signifies that we’re entering the ossified phase of the campaign – where the Ds get in their tank, and the Rs get into theirs. Only trouble is for the whole territory in no man’s land – – you know, the center who usually tips one side or the other in the general election.
But I’ll say this: if even Ted Cruz gets to take the high ground, it is clear this was a pretty poorly thought out moderating job.
But, in fairness, the issue (a) is topical, and (b) isn’t a slam dunk one way or the other. Different GOP candidates likely have widely different opinions on it. Look, debates aren’t going to help me decide who has a better tax package. I’ve got to do my homework on that, not decide on a 30 second sound bite. Debates aren’t going to help me understand how the candidate thinks on his feet if the questions are known ahead of time. This question was both topical, interesting, and probably not part of the debate prep the candidates worked ahead of time.
Given New Jersey’s relatively unique experience with sports gambling, I actually thought the question should have been asked of Governor Christie.
I am OK with alternative questions as long as they are asked of both sides
Republican candidate in a primary campaign struggling to find oxygen.
100% foolproof strategy: insult the media. Poof. Instant oxygen as indignant media splutters about how dare you insult the media.
Will always work, all the time, without exception.
I have to admit that Ted Cruz was absolutely right.
So, they let him indulge the “hostile media” thing, and they let him be right about it?
Don’t they have journalists at that network?
…that I agree with Cruz on something. I actually think his complaint about the line of questioning we see at these debates was spot-on and I have made similar complaints myself in this and previous cycles.
These moderators were objectively awful, I like bashing the GOP as much as anyone else here, but I won’t if it means defending this dud of a debate. These moderators made Jake Tapper look like Tim Russert, which is too bad since I like John Harwood.
These guys can all dodge serious questions in their JV debates if they want….doesn’t mean they won’t get asked 11 months from now.
It’s the idiotic questions being asked
You have been compared by this network to a comic book super villain. If you were a comic book super villain, which one would you be?
Ms. Fiorina, what is your favorite color?
Mr. Bush, what bands were you really into in college?
Mr. Rubio, what is the appropriate age to stop trick or treating?
If the debates in 11 months feature “serious” questions like the ones posed by the CNN buffoons the other evening, then someone is going to ask:
And to Mrs. Clinton: boxers or briefs?
Republicans are trying to claim that questions about idiotic ideas are idiotic questions. They are not.
Asking how you’re going to get a country to pay for a wall designed to keep their citizens out, that will stretch across hundreds of miles of desert, is not idiotic.
Asking how you’re going to balance a budget with a revenue plan that represents a double-digit slash in revenue is not idiotic.
Asking how someone with a long and consistent history of fiscal mismanagement explains that history is not idiotic.
If the Republicans want to claim so, fine. If they want to try to bully the media into thinking so, go for it. But voters will still ask these questions when they go to vote.
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But the Republicans focused on how the question was asked, rather than what was asked. Too bad Republicans are so used to focusing on style that they’ve forgotten how to deal with substance.
Hope you’re right. Afraid you’re not.
This is why it is so important that Bernie Sanders stays in the Democratic primary.
The voters DO have these concerns, and I think will ask them if the media wall of obstruction can be breached. In my view, this is the value of keeping wealth concentration front and center, through disruptive civil disobedience if need be. This is the value of street demonstrations by Black Lives Matter (in spite of the current party line that such demonstrations are somehow CAUSING police violence).
The media don’t want these questions to be discussed. Our job is to force them into the news cycle anyway.
What I’ve been hearing is cops whining that they can’t be aggressive ENOUGH because it might show up on YouTube.
F.B.I. Chief Links Scrutiny of Police With Rise in Violent Crime (emphasis mine):
So the F.B.I. chief asserts a “far from settled” theory that blacks deserve to be beaten up by police, and that video taping such abuse causes violent crime to increase. He does so while openly admitting that he has no data to support it (duh!), and alienates more professional members of his own agency in the process.
Institutional racism is “far from settled” when outrageous comments like this come from the HEAD of the F.B.I. I also note, sadly, that Mr. Comey was appointed in 2013 by Barack Obama. We can’t blame this one on the GOP. Rahm Emmanuel similarly speaks of police “going fetal”, and causing crime to increase.
This is classic blame-the-victim rubbish, it is like arguing that women who are raped bring it on themselves by what they wear or where they choose to walk.
The Black Lives Matter demonstrations are happening because out-of-control police are terrorizing black people (in this case, a child in school). I think most Americans abhor this behavior. I think most Americans want it to stop.
The fact that the response of the HEAD of the FBI is to blame the videos — rather than the unacceptable behavior that they capture — is why the demonstrations must continue.
While I’m disappointed that this is happening on President Obama’s watch, I’m also convinced that any of the Democratic candidates are better than any of the GOP candidates when it comes to police violence.
I interpreted causing police violence as by police rather than on police. I think we agree on this.
Am I the only one who finds the whining of these clowns hilarious, given their literal ownership of America’s highest-rated broadcast “news” outlet? Faux News has been the wholly-owned “marketing communications” arm of the GOP for as long as it’s existed. It’s “reporting” half of the whining, for crying out loud!
I didn’t watch the debate, I don’t watch broadcast news, I don’t watch CNBC. It sounds as though at least some of the questions were, in fact moronic. So what? Was anyone expected anything different?
Here’s what I think. I think this is another made-for-TV spectacle, designed for ratings, that serves the crucial political purpose of obscuring the reality that if these bozos actually DID answer serious questions, they would immediately be exposed as the incompetent and dishonest buffoons that they are.
These guys WANT us talking about the media. They WANT us talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails because that is SO MUCH more comfortable for them than attempting to find coherent answers to what they would do differently.
This is, after all, the same party that whines that the hot-off-the-presses budget deal “gives President Obama a ‘diamond-encrusted, glow-in-the-dark Amex card’ for government spending“. This particular Republican, Ted Cruz, goes on to add “It’s a pretty nifty card. ‘You don’t have to pay for it, you get to spend it and it’s somebody else’s problem.'”
This in reference to a deal where the GOP House very reluctantly agrees to PAY the bills that it has already incurred. If this crowd had to give real answers, they would have to explain to Americans like me where they get the idea that ripping up the bills for credit cards they’ve already abused somehow reflects fiscal responsibility.
This morning’s account of Megyn Kelly criticizing the professionalism of her colleagues brought my first morning chuckles. Megyn Kelly? Are you KIDDING ME? This all makes me long for the glory days of the World Wrestling Federation.
Where are Lou Albano and Cyndi Lauper when the GOP needs them?