Analysis of the 2nd Republican Debate (Huckabee & Christie Won, Bush lost and Trump….)

16
Sep, 2015
by John Hawkins

Just as we saw in the Fox debate, the moderators spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get the candidates to fight with each other. That may make for great clips, but is it good for the Republican Party? I don’t think so. That being said, CNN did a better job of showing policy differences between the candidates.

In a debate with 11 CANDIDATES ON STAGE, there were times when it seemed like certain people just disappeared for 30 minutes at a time. The debate was also VERY Trumpcentric, especially early on. Given how he has dominated the news, that probably makes sense. Here’s a little breakdown of how everyone did.

Trump debate

The Top Tier (Candidates whose numbers will probably go up after this debate)

1) Chris Christie: He was extremely likable, refused to attack other candidates and came across as strong. This was the Christie that conservatives fell in love with early in his tenure as Governor of New Jersey.

2) Mike Huckabee: Huckabee has tremendous charisma and he’s extremely likable. He just came across so well. It was practically a toss-up between him and Christie.

3) Ted Cruz: Cruz didn’t have a lot of great lines, but he consistently sounded strong, intelligent and ferociously conservative.

4) Carly Fiorina: She’s good at sounding authoritative, had a number of good lines and was the first person to draw a little blood on Trump. On the other hand, Trump did some damage on her when he talked about what a terrible CEO she was at HP. Also, she came across as very peevish because Chris Christie told her to stop interrupting him. That was not an attractive facet of her personality.

5) Marco Rubio: Rubio blended into the pack for the first half of the debate and didn’t have a lot of great lines, but he came to life when he talked about foreign policy and sounded great.

The Bottom Tier (The debate will probably drive their numbers down)

6) Scott Walker: Walker wasn’t bad, but he really didn’t say much that made him stand out. I think he probably hurt himself a little bit, not because he did anything wrong, but because he didn’t stand out.

7) Donald Trump: Trump has a big personality, is great at putting out lines and yes, he was able to fight it out with the whole rest of the field. However, when they got into foreign policy, he just didn’t seem to really have a deep knowledge of the issues compared to people like, let’s say, Rubio or Cruz.

8) Ben Carson: Carson made some gaffes and his slower, soft spoken, quiet speaking style didn’t come across well.

9) Rand Paul: Rand is so bad at doing these nasty exchanges with other candidates that he should stop doing them. Also, at times, he reminded me a little too much of his dad tonight. It’s not a Libertarian primary.

10) John Kasich: He was just bad all the way around. There’s very little good to say about his performance.

11) Jeb Bush: Trump beat him ferociously in their exchanges, Jeb looked awkward most of the time and he made a number of gaffes. It was a terrible performance.

 

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