1. Donald Trump isn’t a team player.
The debate started with what we all thought would be a no-brainer. Moderator Bret Baier asked the candidates to raise their hand if they refused to pledge not to run as an independent assuming they don’t win the Republican nomination.
Trump, following a smug, cursory look around the room raised his hand with a try-and-stop-me smile. What followed was shockingly reminiscent of a judge on Law and Order assessing the psychological fitness of a witness.
Baier: Mr. Trump to be clear, you’re standing on a Republican primary debate stage.
Trump: I fully understand.
Baier: The place where the RNC will give the nominee the nod.
Trump: I fully understand.
Baier: And that experts say an independent run would almost certainly hand the race over to the Democrats... You can’t say tonight that you can make that pledge?
Trump: I cannot say.
The candidates who didn’t raise their hands made a clear, diplomatic statement. They said, “My priority is that the Republicans win and the Democrats lose. My loyalty is to the Republican party winning.”
By not raising his hand, Trump made a different kind of statement, he said “Let the Democrats win! If I’m going down, I’m taking you all down with me.”
2. Bush’s family ties will never cease to haunt him.
When asked about his family history, Bush made a good case for why he’s earned the right to be called “Jeb” and not be tied to his father and brother’s history.
But that didn’t stop the moderators from bringing up his family in nearly every question directed towards him. It’s going to take a lot more than big resume and charismatic smile to step out of this shadow.
3. Trump is sexist, and people like that.
Leave it to the ultra-conservative Megyn Kelly to go after Trump for sexist and misogynistic comments, but she did. But even more surprising is that her laundry list of insults that Trump has used in the past (“fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals”) was met not with disgust from the audience, but laughter and applause.
Trump responded first by joking, then by claiming his critics are too “politically correct”, and finally by threatening Kelly, “I’ve been very nice to you” he said, “although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me.” This statement was again met with thunderous applause.
Will someone tell Trump that there is a difference between being overly PC and agreeing to give basic respect to 51% of the country?
4. Walker is Pro-Fetus and Anti-Fact
When asked the question: “Would you really let a mother die rather than have an abortion?”, Governor Walker responded, “There are many other alternatives that can also protect the life of that mother.”
The question of if he would let a women die for the sake of a fetus was left unanswered, and replaced with blanket statement claiming that pregnancy is absolutely risk-free.
5. Huckabee is using made-up science to prove made-up points.
After a lot of candidates proudly taunted their defunding of Planned Parenthood, Huckabee decided to take it a step farther and promised to invoke the "Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the constitution” because a fetus “is a person at the moment of conception”.
He knows this for a fact because of the “DNA schedule that we now have clear scientific evidence on”. But here’s the thing... there is no such thing as a 'DNA schedule'. Maybe Huckabee should be a bit more careful about citing non-existant science to prove his personal beliefs.
7. Kasich has some surprisingly liberal views on prison reform and Medicaid.
When asked about his Medicaid expansion in Ohio, Kasich cited facts and statistics about how rehabilitating the mentally ill and helping them “get on their feet” costs far less than waiting for them to show up in an emergency room or prison.
Careful Kasich, any more well-thought-out logic like that and people may start labeling you a bleeding heart liberal!
8. Bipartisan friendliness=Conspiring with the enemy
While criticizing the need for the Patriot Act, Paul attacked Christie with a personal blow: “I don’t trust President Obama with our records. I know you gave him a big hug, and if you want to give him a big hug again, go right ahead.”
The infamous hug Paul is referring to happened back in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy, when Obama visited New Jersey and, with Christie, toured the devastation. While many applauded the two politicians for putting aside politics and instead focusing on rebuilding New Jersey after a major tragedy, others saw it as a betrayal–how could the Republican Governor treat the Democratic President with anything other than the disdain he deserved?
By invoking 'The Hug' as an accusation against Christie, Paul made his stance clear: screw working together. This is war. Democrats are the enemy. Cooperation is treason.
9. Trump is corrupt, but at least he’s honest about it.
Nobody would be surprised to hear that politicians are corrupt–it’s DC’s worst-kept secret. What was surprising was when Trump not only admitted to buying influence, but outright bragged about it.
He explained, “I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them… I call them; they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.”
Trump is proud that he managed to use the system to his advantage. He claims it’s the system’s fault for being broken, but certainly not his fault for taking advantage of it.
In true Frank Underwood fashion, Trump doesn’t care about morals, so long as he gets what he wants.
10. Want easy points? Bash Clinton.
Fox may have only invited 10 candidates to the debate stage, but the presence of an eleventh couldn’t have been more looming. It seemed that every time a candidate wanted to score easy points, all he had to do was bash Hillary Clinton.
And never was this more abundantly clear than when, as Trump talked about donating money to the Clinton Foundation, Walker took the opportunity to interrupt and bring up her record as Secretary of State, claiming, “everywhere in the world that Hillary Clinton touched is more messed up than before”. Despite the comment coming straight out of nowhere and Walker never giving any examples or evidence, the audience responded with roaring applause.
One formula is sure to always work during the 2016 Republican Primaries, Clinton+Negativity=Applause.
11. Bush needs to do more research.
The undercover Planned Parenthood videos were brought up constantly during the debate, every candidate eager to jump in and establish themselves as pro-life and flaunt their history of antagonism towards Planned Parenthood.
So, when Kelly brought up Bush’s history on the board of the Bloomberg Foundation, a group which publically gave “tens of millions of dollars” to the nonprofit, things got awkward. Bush brushed off the accusation claiming that he had not known about the donations and that the budget “was presented and we approved it. Not item by item.”
Will United States President Jeb Bush also pass blanket approval on budgets without looking “item by item”?
12. Kasich pulls the “gay friends” card, the right way.
It would seem Kasich was full of surprises Thursday night. While many Reupblicans have been brutal in their criticism of the Supreme Court’s ruling, threatening to fight it or even outright ignore it, Kasich claimed that he disagreed with the court ruling but accepted it.
He went on to say that he had just gone to the gay wedding of his friend and that he would even love and accept his own daughters if they turned out to be gay. He went on to say,
“Because somebody doesn’t think the way I do, doesn’t mean that I can’t care about them or can’t love them. So if one of my daughters happened to be [gay], of course I would love them and accept them… God gives me unconditional love. I’m going to give it to my family and friends and the people around me.”
A conservative politician using either God or a “friend who is gay” on the topic of marriage equality is almost never a good sign. But here Kasich surprised everyone by using both as reasons to love and accept everyone, regardless of sexual preference.
13. Fox News wants to know how qualified the candidates are to be the next Prophet of the United States.
The final question of the debate was “I want to know if any of [the candidates] have received a word from God on what they should do and take care of first.”
It seems awfully strange for a country founded on the principle of separation between Church and State to put such emphasis on whether or not its presidential candidates are in direct communication with the man upstairs.
