As I am sure everyone is well aware, the Republican candidates took the stage in the first presidential debate this past Thursday evening. This debate has had millions of citizens talking—mostly about Donald Trump, his strong opinions on border control and of course, his hair. The top 10 Republican candidates were featured during this primetime debate. Meanwhile, the “seven dwarfs of the GOP presidential field,” AKA the bottom seven contenders, had their JV debate earlier that evening. Basically, these seven candidates have been polling an average of zero on the series of national polls and this was their “do or die” moment, or rather, their moment to make themselves stand out as well as possible among this unpopular pool of candidates.
Among these seven candidates were Virgina Gov. Jim Gilmore, former New York Gov. George Pataki, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. According to several news sources, this debate really did not do much for any of the seven candidates in terms of gaining any popularity for themselves. Particularly, Lindsey Graham’s difficulty and inability to effectively deliver his opening statement was a major downfall, and George Pataki who was already an extremely unfamiliar name and face to most people, wasted other candidate's response time with his own extensive responses. As for the rest of the candidates, they were mostly classified as presenting to be “fine” or not having “totally screwed up.”
Overall, there were no moments that were specifically newsworthy and the entire debate was rather unexciting—it is no wonder that there has been little to no discussion on the subject. It will be interesting to see what will happen in the upcoming national polls for the more well-known candidates (Jindal, Perry, and Santorum) as they are very familiar faces to the Republican Party. As of right now however, this JV debate remains to leave this bottom seven pretty much right where they started.
