New York Times
By Trip Gabriel and Nick Corasanti
August 6, 2015
They called it the undercard. The kiddie table. The happy hour debate.
The
wry and self-deprecating nicknames coined by the seven presidential
candidates bumped from the main Republican debate on Thursday were meant
to put a brave face on
a situation that none liked: They were relegated to a forum several
hours earlier on the same stage, with far fewer people watching.
Throughout
the session, the moderators asked questions that reminded the
candidates of their junior varsity status. They told Gov. Bobby Jindal
of Louisiana that he polled
behind Hillary Rodham Clinton in his own state. Rick Santorum, the
former Pennsylvania senator, was asked if his time had passed. Carly
Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, was reminded of her
poor polling.
The
absence of the top 10 candidates, chosen based on national polls,
sapped much of the potential energy from the debate, which took place in
a sports arena utterly empty
of the crowd expected for the later event. None of the participants
criticized their peers. The pacing of the questions and dutiful answers
had more in common with a spelling bee than a vigorous exchange of
ideas.
Two
veteran political reporters, Maggie Haberman and Nick Confessore, are
watching, analyzing and chatting about the prime-time G.O.P. debate. The
Times is also providing
fact checks and reaction.
At
the outset, one of the two Fox News moderators, Bill Hemmer, brought up
“the elephant that is not in the room tonight, Donald Trump,” and the
outspoken billionaire’s
shadow was felt throughout the debate.
Former
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, whose sharp critique of Mr. Trump last month
as a “cancer on conservatism” may have cost him a place in the main
debate, repeated that
Mr. Trump, the real estate mogul and former reality television star,
was running on his celebrity, not policies.
“How
can you run for the Republican nomination and be for single-payer
health care?” Mr. Perry asked, referring to a position Mr. Trump once
took.
Even
when not asked about Mr. Trump, candidates alluded to him. Mr.
Santorum, speaking of illegal immigration, said that “some of the other
candidates have strong positions”
on the topic, but that his was different. Perhaps in an effort to top
Mr. Trump, Mr. Santorum called for restricting legal immigration by 25
percent.
He
said that 35 million people had “come here over the last 20 years,
almost all of whom are unskilled workers,” and that they were
“flattening wages” and creating “a
lack of opportunities for unskilled workers.”
Ms.
Fiorina criticized Mr. Trump for shifting from liberal policies he had
favored while flirting with earlier presidential runs.
“Since
he has changed his mind on amnesty, on health care and on abortion, I
think, what are the principles on which he would govern?” she said.
Few
of the candidates attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton unprovoked. (When
asked by moderators, however, they enthusiastically obliged.) One who
did, Senator Lindsey Graham
of South Carolina, accused Mrs. Clinton of doublespeak in her defense
of her use of a private email server as secretary of state. He also
ridiculed her comment that she and Bill Clinton were “flat broke” after
leaving the White House.
“Hillary, I’ll show you flat broke,” Mr. Graham quipped.
Aside
from his critique of Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Graham focused mostly on a
single issue, repeatedly concluding his remarks with references to
foreign policy. If a candidate
does not “understand we cannot defend our nation without more of our
soldiers over there, you’re not ready for this job,” he said.
He
later took aim directly at the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with
Iran, saying, “This deal is giving him a pathway to a bomb, a missile
to deliver it and money
to pay for it all.”
Nearly all of the candidates on stage promised to reject the deal with Iran on their first day in office.
“This
is a bad deal,” Ms. Fiorina said. “Obama broke every rule of
negotiation. Yes, our allies are not perfect. But Iran is at the heart
of most of the evil that is going
on in the Middle East through their proxies.”
Jim
Gilmore, the former governor of Virginia, who struggled to get his
share of the attention during the debate, proposed that “there be a
Middle East NATO so that we
can combine our allies there.”
Abortion
was also a focus of the 80-minute debate. Mr. Jindal said that on Day 1
in the Oval Office, he would order investigations by the Justice
Department and other
agencies into Planned Parenthood, whose handling of fetal tissue has
been the subject of secretly recorded videos that Mr. Jindal said “show
hideous disrespect for life.”
George
E. Pataki, the former New York governor, was asked how, as a Republican
favoring abortion rights, he could hope to win support when no
candidate with his views
had won a Republican presidential primary anywhere in 35 years. Mr.
Pataki said that he was “personally appalled” by abortion, but that it
was fruitless to continue trying to overrule the Supreme Court’s
decision to allow it under certain circumstances.
Each
candidate could cite long résumés, from stints as governors to senators
to chief executives. And many pointed to their experience to suggest
that they could bolster
job growth and the economy.
No
one played this card more strongly than Mr. Perry, who noted in both
his closing and opening remarks that during his tenure as governor,
Texas added 1.5 million jobs
during “a period when America was going through the most deep recession
it had been through since the Great Depression.”
Mr.
Santorum sought to establish himself as the candidate of the
manufacturer. “Under my presidency, we’ll create jobs and make America
the No. 1 manufacturing country
in the world,” he said, promising that his 20 percent flat tax would
“create a manufacturing juggernaut in this country.”
“There’s nobody out there looking out for the American worker,” Mr. Santorum said.
It
was unclear whether any of the candidates delivered a forceful enough
performance to move themselves into the “adult table” in future debates.
One of the contenders
previously least known nationally, Ms. Fiorina, did come across as
poised and tough.
Mr.
Perry, the No. 11 candidate in national polls, according to Fox News,
may have suffered most under the formula used to winnow the field.
Almost exactly four years
ago, he stood at center stage in a Republican presidential debate at
the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, reflecting his position as the
leader in polls. His fall from favor with primary voters had much to do
with his moderate positions on illegal immigration
as governor.
But
on Thursday, he insisted there could be no national conversation on
granting any kind of legal status to the millions of immigrants in the
United States illegally
before securing the border with Mexico.
“You
have to put the strategic fencing in place,” Mr. Perry said, “and you
have to have aviation assets that fly all the way from Tijuana to El
Paso to Brownsville, Tex.
— 1,933 miles, looking down 24/7, with the technology to be able to
identify what individuals are doing and ID when they are in obviously
illegal activities or suspicious activities, and quick response teams
come.”
He
added, “At that particular point in time, then Americans will believe
that Washington is up to a conversation to deal with the millions of
people that are here illegally,
but not until.”
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