That’s frustrating to me. Did they not watch Romney’s first debate with Obama from 2012? Everything we knew he supported, Romney flat out denied. “Of course I’ll help the poor, women, minorities”, just one lie after another. It even caught Obama offguard that they simply decided lying would be a better tactic. And it worked. Romney got a small bump from that I think.
I expect that to be the default GOP template now. Trump or whoever can say the most racist things, the dumbest things, the most insane things, on the campaign trail but during a debate, they’ll simply claim they never said that.
Not even DNC shills. Daytime talkshow hosts, maybe. It’s not that they wanted the Democrats to win; they just wanted a shitstorm of a circus to boost ratings.
And if he were conducting an interview for his network he could have done all that. But he wasn’t. He was moderating a debate between Republican presidential candidates. And it’s not like he and Trump were having an exchange and Harwood called him in the heat of the moment, which also would be inappropriate moderator action but maybe then you could argue hey, he’s a human being. But this was the first question right out of the box. Harwood’s very first action showed, you know what, I don’t care what you say, I don’t care about having a debate, I just want to humiliate you.
Personally, I think the Fox moderators in the first debate did more of the “Hey, he said this about you. What about that?” type of question than either CNN or CNBC. But of course, one of the commandments in the Republican catechism is Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of Fox News, so no gripes then.
Not many people watched, after all not a lot of people know how to find CNBC and there was a World Series game on. But the big money donors watch, and it’s hard to imagine them saying “Hey, I think I’ll write a check to Jeb!”
So in the Sane Division, Rubio’s stock rises dramatically, Bush is in hospice care, Kasich got bloodied up by Trump, and Christie lingers on.
In the Insane Division, Trump still has strength, Carson now has some ‘splainin’ to do, Cruz gets a little bump, while the rest are comatose.
I’m completely baffled by this line of reasoning. “I’m going to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it” is not a serious policy prescription. It doesn’t warrant a question like, “How do you expect to accomplish this?” It certainly does, in conjunction with some of the other things Trump has said, warrant a question like, “Why should we continue to take you seriously when you propose such complete nonsense?”
I’m getting the impression that those objecting to the moderators’ questions last night are of the opinion that the press’s job in a Presidential campaign is to pretend that everything a candidate says is to be treated with an equal level of seriousness - a press that acts this way is, in fact, not doing its job.
What’s baffling is how you get from moderator, which means arbitrator or mediator, to instigator. A moderator, whether it’s a press member or not, is not there to enter the debate. A good moderator will let the candidates sort it out among themselves whose ideas are crap and whose are worthy.
The press can do their job, as you explain it, when they’re not moderating debates. They can do interviews, speak or write opinion pieces and execute their agenda any number of ways.
And I would agree the Fox moderators also let their agenda get in the way of their moderation. But they looked like gold star pros compared to the CNBC team.
But calling Trump on his nonsense isn’t likely to get him to admit that it’s nonsense. He’ll just say that he’s not crazy, the leaders who have come before are crazy and losers and idiots. It’s not a productive use of time. This is especially true of Trump, but also holds true for the other candidates.
That’s not to say that crazy nonsense needs to be taken seriously. I get super tired of news shows where they treat both sides as equal on every issue, when one side is crazy. But you can present the specifics on why an idea is crazy, and ask for any specific explanation on why they are supporting an idea, or how they think their specific plan would work. They can still dodge the question, but there’s a chance that they might say specifics, or at the very least maybe some people would see that they have no specifics and are just full of hot air.
Given that in the first debate the candidates were prodded like caged beasts to fight each other, why the venom hurled at CNBC? Does Fox have a permanent waiver from criticism from the right?
I don’t think that’s remotely fair. Yes the FOX debate was at least as bad if not worse for that type of question, but you can’t expect the candidates to be annoyed and ready for it right out of the gate. You can’t reasonably conclude they are all just scared of criticizing Fox, especially after Trump went off on them afterwards.
As I said, Fox moderators were executing their own agenda and I didn’t care for their questioning, either. And the candidates, Trump in particular, were critical of the Fox moderators.
Although the Fox moderators prodded Trump, they didn’t outright insult him. And I don’t recall Fox moderators setting an obvious “gotcha” trap like with the line of questioning about Carly Fiorina’s departure from HP.
“You were fired from HP.”
“Yes, and then Tom Perkins, who led the firing, admitted it was a mistake and I’d make a good president.”
“A-ha! You want Tom Perkins, who thinks poor people shouldn’t vote, endorsing you?!”
“Harwood’s very first action showed, you know what, I don’t care what you say, I don’t care about having a debate, if you take positions that have gone beyond unrealistic and into crazy-land, I just want to [del]humiliate you[/del] highlight that fact for the folks at home.”
Fixed that for you.
ETA: If the GOP candidates don’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard, maybe they ought to try re-establishing their connection with reality.
So in other words, you feel it’s the moderator’s job, not the other participants in the debate, to point out a candidate’s flaws? Again, the moderator is supposed to be a mediator.
The whole purpose of the debate is to let the candidates sort it out. When the moderator starts hurling insults and setting traps, he gets in the way of the debate.
I think the moderator acts as our proxy. The other candidates aren’t going to do anything to jeopardize the general election, so they won’t point out that each other’s economic plans, which are pretty much interchangeable, are nothing but smoke and mirrors. These really aren’t debates in the classic sense, they’re joint press conferences. In a press conference, you get tough questions, as it should be.