It was all laughs when the GOP first realized just how loyal
their new pals in the far right were at the start of the Tea Party era. Kind of like showing up at summer camp in a
horror flick. At first it’s all just fun
and games. The cool kid sparks up a doobie.
Brenda goes skinny dipping and doesn’t get eaten by anything. Then the sun goes down and all of a sudden a
bunch of crazy assholes come out of nowhere and start chasing everyone around
with chainsaws and meat cleavers. Now is
the part of the movie when the teenagers huddle and try to figure out just who
are all these crazy assholes. Turns out,
as is forever the case, they’ve been here for a while, and this just happens to
be their turf. Trump is just the crazy older
camp counselor who seems to know the way out – for now.
Which candidates are in position to make it out of Trump Summer Camp intact? The second debate will likely have a few hints.
Carson:
Dr. Ben Carson earns the top spot heading into the second
debate for a reason. After squeaking into the adult table of the first GOP
debate, he proceeded to storm all the way to number two in a variety of
national polls. How did this
happen? Well, it’s difficult to say,
mainly because he barely said anything.
Meaning that he literally barely got a chance to speak. After disappearing for a handful of Chris
Christie segments and a whole steaming pile from Ted Cruz (more than a
half-hour), Carson finally got a second chance to speak deep into the debate
and wasted no time tight-roping the gauntlet of GOP talking points. He blamed racial tension on progressives;
soft-soaked the NeoCons by boldly proclaiming that we needed to focus more on
building our military; and showed that he was a man of God by saying that we
should just tithe when he was asked about tax policy. Oh, and while reaching for the top level of an
intellect-based discourse, he proclaimed that he was smart and that everyone in
Washington was stupid.
Did it work?
Big-time. Carson surged
into second place in all major early states, jumping as much as 12 points in
New Hampshire. Does he have anything
more intellectually advanced to offer?
It didn’t get him this for, so it’s hard to see him changing it up
now. If you want to know what plays in
today’s GOP, Carson could be Exhibit A as easily as Trump right now.
Now what?
Expect more vague GOP oddities from Mr. Carson, indefinitely.
Trump:
Trump started this whole crusade by proving that you could
call the sitting POTUS a Kenyan, tell all the immigrants to go back to Mexico
(whether they’rgo directly to federal prison slingshot
into first place in the GOP with relative ease.
Did he bring up a single idea that could be placed into reality during
the first debate? Of course not, but
that’s not the reason a record 24 million Americans tuned in to see the
Donald. Instead of policy, Trump grabbed
the first piece of low-hanging fruit available (a Rosie O’Donnell jab) and the
Trumpites breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Then he picked a Twitter fight with Megyn Kelly and dangled his private
parts in front of Fox News President Roger Ailes after the debate – and
rocketed even higher in the polls.
Now what?
Trump continues to defy every single bit of conventional
wisdom about politics. Since a
substance-free but entertaining performance the first time around, he has been received
like a rock star at every turn. During a
recent Iowa-Iowa State football game, they treated him like Paul McCartney
circa 1964. At the same game, they
thought Scott Walker was Marco Rubio (this actually happened). Most impressive/apocalyptic is the fact that
Trump’s unfavorable ratings have gone from disastrous to almost not even an
issue. Is Trump mania finally reaching
its peak? If a crash is around the
corner, it’s hard to say there is any sign of it at this point.
Cruz:
Another of the clear winners so far. While polled Republicans have completely
abandoned the establishment since the first debate, Cruz oiled up his
evangelical voice and has marched right onto the leaderboard at the 2016 GOP
U.S. Open. What did he do in the debate? Cruz devoted most of his time to ensuring
that he would always “tell the truth,” a thinly veiled bare-knuckle backhand to
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner. The rest of the time he assured the
evangelicals that he was their guy and that no one was ever going to
out-conservative the biggest conservative on the stage. Since the debate, his biggest moment came
when he rushed to Kentucky for a photo op with Kim Davis in jail, only to find
out the judge had already released her and that he would have to waddle onto a
stage with Mike Huckabee instead.
 |
| Yes, this is Ted Cruz cooking bacon on an assault rifle for an ad |
Verdict: Cruz is
in command with a respectable amount of evangelicals and extreme elements of
the far-right. If Carson or Trump falls,
Cruz appears perfectly placed to pick up the crumbs. The intense loyalty of his base is also
exactly why he’ll be able to make a push to shutdown the government later in
the month and sleep at night after he blames Obama.
Fiorina:
No one outside of Carly Fiorina made it out of the sideshow
debate on the first go around, and there’s a reason. She made candidates like Rick Perry and
Lindsey Graham look like…well, like Rick Perry and Lindsey Graham. After dispatching the most forgettable
candidates left in the race, Fiorina came out of the first debate with enough
rising support to make CNN completely backpedal on the initial decision to keep
her at the kiddie table. Fiorina has
demonstrated a sharp tongue ripping Hillary (prerequisite), has effectively
boasted of her business experience and might be the only one to land a
successful blow against Trump (“I didn’t get a phone call from Bill
Clinton”). Bonus points for being a
political outsider.
What she needs to do
from here:
Dismantling the B-squad proved easy enough for Fiorina in
the first round of debates, but there is a lot more political talent and
momentum on her stage this time around.
Kasich:
Kasich’s position is much more difficult to figure. For acknowledging a few basic political
realities (i.e. that gay marriage is now law and that there are other things to
focus on), Kasich certainly has the same odds of winning over the far right as
Screech had with Lisa Turtle. Still,
Kasich came across as the moderate Republican that Jeb was supposed to be, only
with a much more dynamic message and delivery.
Kasich hands out a lot of the same ideas as the establishment but is
also a fresh face and appears willing to lead on issues that are mathematically
decided. Kasich’s best moment from the
first debate: given a chance to tee off on Trump, Kasich ignores the bait, says
that Trump has “struck a nerve in this country,” and pivots to the Ohio
economy. With his poll numbers melting
up heading into the second debate, Kasich’s camp has to like their
position.
The rest:
It’s pretty clear from the post-debate polls that nobody
really cares in any way whatsoever about the establishment characters. At this point, they’re that kid who ran for
school president with a bowl cut two years after you could actually pull that
off. They’re trying to say the right
things, but nobody is going to give a sh*t without a haircut, which would also
simultaneously admit defeat. Scott Walker
generates the enthusiasm of a drying machine and came off as extreme as Huckabee on
abortion. Jeb Bush’s big rehearsed moment
was getting in on the pun game, calling himself “Veto Corleone” not unlike the jackass
senator from Godfather II who mispronounced it on purpose. Chris Christie gave it his all when he pitched us
his record of putting away terrorists, championing himself for being a
Republican governor in a blue state that completely despises him. Rand Paul came out swinging against Trump and
Christie, and mostly whiffed while claiming that he is a “different kind of
Republican.” Mike Huckabee didn’t even attempt to hide
the fact that he is actually a velociraptor, then broke out the 5th
and 14th amendments in his case to outlaw abortion. Even Rubio, who certainly appeared more
poised and polished than the other bottom-dwellers, wasn’t able to make a
splash despite showing at least a shred of common sense in the immigration
debate. Can any of the fading candidates
generate a spark? Embarrassingly enough,
their best play may be to just come out flinging feces at Trump and the
front-runners…another yawn-inducing performance in front of a big crowd could
put a few candidates near the brink. 
Sometimes it's hard to believe the state of that party.
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