Friday Open Thread [8.7.15]

My take, from the brief parts that I could stand to watch: Trump hurt himself among all humans, living or dead. But not enough to end his campaign or for him not to the frontrunner. But I suspect, when actual votes are counted, Donald Trump will do very poorly. The two candidates that stood out most to me as a Democrat are John Kasich and Marco Rubio. Both would be very difficult candidates to beat in the general, I think. But both have faults. Rubio still seems unpolished and he has this… what I can only describe as a “scared” tone in his voice that I attribute to new public speakers. And he looks too young. Not young and vibrant, like Clinton, Gore and Obama, but young and no where near ready. I cannot escape the feeling that Rubio is just running for Vice President. And he had a major flub when he basically endorsed Hillary Clinton as the most qualified person for the job.

Kasich’s problems are that his answers that make him dangerous in the general will hurt him in the primary. Accepting Obamacare and Accepting Gay Marriage. I cannot imagine more lethal apostasies. And he flat out lied when he said he balanced the federal budget when he was chair of the OMB during George W. Bush’s first term. Nope, Mr. Kasich, you inherited a balanced budget from President Clinton, which you immediately put into the red with your tax cuts.

Is it me or is Jeb Bush the Incredibly Shrinking Man? Has he lost like 50 pounds? And the more he speaks, the more he sounds like W. “In Florida they call me Jeb, cause I earned it?” Earned what? Being called Jeb? That’s dumb.

The Christie v. Paul cat fight was fun, and Paul was right about the Bill of Rights. Why is Scott Walker getting good poll numbers? He was the most underwhelming and disappointing last night.

Huckabee was Huckabee, a fascist theocrat. Cruz was Cruz, a modern day Joe McCarthy.

Compared to the GOP’s candidates in 2008 and 2012, the current crop are deeply, deeply unpopular. Looking at the recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump both notched a 26 percent favorability, the highest scores in the GOP field. In August and September of 2007, Pew, CNN and Fox polls each had John McCain’s favorability between 47%-49%. In August 2011, Mitt Romney had an average favorability rating of 36%.

From the Wall Street Journal. Cruz stands out to me. If Donald Trump falters, Cruz will become the next favorite.

FLORIDA–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Florida Times Union: Trump 27, Bush 26, Rubio 7, Walker 6, Cruz 8, Huckabee 4, Paul 2, Carson 8, Fiorina 2, Kasich 3, Jindal 2, Perry 1, Christie 1, Graham 0

Politico: “The Ohio governor, the last heavyweight to jump into the 17-candidate pool, barely squeaked onto the debate stage, registering a just-good-enough 4 percent. He wasn’t exactly an electrifying presence Thursday but he was steady, folksy and spoke with the authority of someone who is in office at the helm of a battleground state. During a debate that featured near unanimity on most major issues, he was the one candidate to truly differentiate himself, saying that he respected the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, a position that puts him in line with the party’s younger voters and the population at large.”

Chris Cillizza: “As always, Trump is the hardest candidate to judge. His unwillingness to commit to supporting the Republican nominee if he isn’t it should hurt him among Republicans. His general cluelessness about foreign policy specifics won’t help either. But, what I’ve learned about Trump is that his brashness and boisterousness have an appeal with a not-small part of the GOP electorate. And, Trump did Trump tonight — unapologetic and dismissive at every turn.”

Dan Balz: “The first Republican debate of the 2016 campaign appeared to leave the nomination contest just as it was before. Donald Trump brought to Thursday’s debate the same sharp tongue and controversial style that has propelled him to the top of the polls in the Republican race. He was outspoken, bombastic and unapologetic. He did exactly what he has been doing up to now, and it hasn’t hurt him yet.”

Michael Grunwald:

Mike Huckabee suggested he would defy the Supreme Court in order to ban abortion, because it’s “not the Supreme Being,” while Marco Rubio denied that he supports abortion rights for rape and incest victims, and Scott Walker defended his opposition to abortion when the mother’s life is at risk. Ben Carson came out for a tithe-like 10 percent across-the-board flat tax, because “God’s a pretty fair guy,” while Huckabee suggested he would tax “pimps, prostitutes and illegals” to raise money for Social Security. In the earlier debate among also-rans, Bobby Jindal said he would direct his Internal Revenue Service to investigate Planned Parenthood on Day One, which sounded like a potentially impeachable way to start a presidency.

None of those policy statements seemed particularly newsworthy last night, because Donald Trump didn’t make them, but they gave a fairly consistent sense of the Republican primary. Moderation does not appear to be a popular strategy.

Harry Enten: “I have thoughts about who won and lost the debate, but I’m not trusting myself on who will drop or get a bounce out of the debate. Why? As Lynn Vavreck pointed out, a key experiment out of Arizona State in 2004 showed that voters’ minds can be greatly shaped by who the media says won or lost the debate. So while it pains me to watch cable news, I’ll be paying attention to the talking heads tonight and over the next few days.”

Nate Cohn: “With so little time having passed after the debate, it’s impossible to know whether the media will deem [Rubio] the sort of overwhelming winner who will get the attention necessary to make a big jump in the polls. But even if this is not the moment he breaks through, he surely advanced his case among the many electability-minded and conservative party elites with reservations about the abilities of both Mr. Bush and Mr. Walker.”

Nate Silver: “Just check his glowing Twitter mentions from members of the press corps: The media horde is likely to declare John Kasich the winner of the debate. For viewers at home, he’s not as much of a standout, at least based on his middling Google search traffic. But the post-debate spin often matters more than the reality.”

Ben Casselman: “One striking thing about tonight’s debate: how little of a role the economy played. Sure, there were scattered references to jobs and incomes, and there was a section of the debate that focused on economic issues. But in a sharp contrast to four years ago, the candidates often seemed eager to shift attention to other issues.”

First Read: “Who was the winner of the first Democratic debate in 2007? From our recollection, it was John Edwards. And who didn’t quite look that great at that April 2007 showdown? Barack Obama. Translation: What’s more important is how these candidates improve over the course of the primary reason — instead of how they performed in their first debate.”

Josh Green: “A few hours before Thursday’s Fox News debate, a friend of Donald Trump’s confided to me that Trump was nervous. Not about the competition—he could handle them. No, Trump worried about Fox News, and in particular, debate moderator Megyn Kelly. She’d been hammering him all week on her show, and he was certain she was out to get him. He’d canceled a Fox News appearance on Monday night, the friend said, in order to avoid her. (Trump’s spokeswoman wouldn’t confirm or deny this.) It turns out Trump was right. His toughest opponents Thursday night weren’t the candidates up on stage, but the Fox News moderators, who went right after him—none with more gusto than Kelly.”