After more than two-and-a-half-hours, the fifth Republican "debate" in five months concluded with the most important moment of the night. Donald Trump committed himself to not running as an independent if he fails to win the nomination. Are you ready to reassure Republicans, asked the fawning talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt.
“I really am,” said a heartfelt Donald. “I’ve gained great respect for the Republican leadership and the people on the dais—in different forms.”
Hewitt applauded and the national party exhaled. Four months ago, Trump begun the first debate by refusing to commit to the party. After a night of clichéd theatrics, Trump’s statement made this debate noteworthy. Before it, viewers had been subjected to a endless string of half-baked ideas.
The CNN moderators had probed. Do you really want to close the internet Donald? “I wanted to get our brilliant people from Silicon Valley …and penetrate the internet and find out where Islamic State is. …I certainly don’t want people who want to kill us using our internet.”
So many of these candidates say deranged things that Rand Paul, whose father used to be the most unhinged figure at debates in 2008 and 2012, now comes across as the man of sense. “Trump says we ought to close ‘that internet thing’… like they do in North Korea? Rubio says we should collect all Americans’ records, all of the time; the Constitution says otherwise.”
When Christie, who may become the party’s flavour of the week after an assertive performance, talked tough on shooting down Russian planes, Paul piped up: “If you’re in favour of World War Three, you have your candidate. What we want in a leader is someone with judgement, not someone jumping up and down saying ‘Yes I’ll shoot down planes!’”
It was a night of two-way tussles: Paul vs Christie, Trump vs Bush, Cruz vs Rubio, with Carson, Fiorina and Kasich largely forgotten. But issues were usually used as a peg for a character attack. Paul concluded his condemnation with a crack at Christie “…someone who might shut down a bridge because he doesn’t like their friends,” a reference to the furore which derailed his candidacy in 2013.
Trump and Bush easily surpassed the pair. When Trump attacked CNN, Bush chimed in, “If you think this is tough, try dealing with Putin! This is a tough business.” “Oh yeah, you’re a tough guy Jeb. You’re tough. You’re real tough,” goaded Trump. “You’re never going to insult your way to the Presidency…” Bush chided. “Well let’s see I’m on 42 [per cent in national polls], you’re on 3! You know you started off here Jeb, you’re moving over further and further over, soon you’re going to be off the end!”
In these debates candidates are given podium slots based on their polls. It’s a fraught system; fuelled by media coverage, polls could easily be overestimating support for Trump. Polls put Trump centre stage which means more coverage, which means greater name recognition and better polls.
But while polls favour Trump—Cruz and Rubio are the two bookies favourites. Yet their attacks on each other never made much of a mark. As they squabbled over their Senate records, Christie smartly rose above them.
“I want to talk to the audience at home for a minute. If you’re eyes are glazed over too, this is what it’s like on the floor of the US Senate!” As the crowd warmed, he pushed on. “Endless debates from people who’ve never had to make a consequential decision. For seven years I had to make these decisions after 9/11…”
Cue Christie’s stump speech: I was a federal prosecutor during the last war on terror, I should lead us into our latest one. But Christie’s moment was submerged in a long night of unexplained 30-second statements, WWE-worthy reactions from the crowd, and too many moderators.
Hewitt, who prefaced half his questions with elegies, is the kind of presence now needed to assuage the anti-media hatred of much of the Republican Party. The days of an establishment figure like Tim Russert moderating debates alone are over; the party, and the country, is too fragmented.
That means we’re learning far less. As The Atlantic’s James Fallows tweeted, “I’ve watched these debates since 1976. We have hit rock bottom in content and common sense.” Research has suggested that more voters than ever are paying to these debates, and the presence of Trump has doubled and tripled their typical audiences, but after five forays, we’ve learnt little in 2015.
What we have seen is moderates morphing into conservatives, like Rubio and Fiorina, or sticking to their views and sinking without a trace, as Pataki has and Kasich will. Joke candidates like Ben Carson have shown that every Republican cycle will now feature an outsider with no qualifications who catches fire and soon burns out, as Herman Cain did in 2008.
While traditional conservatives, such as Huckabee, Santorum and Paul, have been replaced by Cruz and Trump; the former is now the standard bearer of the religious right, the latter leads the anti-establishment mob. Together they could potentially unite the conservative cause.
Jeb Bush can no longer lead the party his family once led. The right-wing his brother marshalled to re-election in 2004 is now a break-away group. It may be united under a Trump-Cruz ticket—the pair couldn’t have been warmer to one another last night—but it’s hard to see how that pair could win the White House.
But, Trump has this logic-defying ability to almost grow stronger with every supposed "gaffe". If this was traditional politics, with a traditional politician playing by traditional rules then his career would have been over when he first cast doubt on Senator John McCain's war hero credentials back in July. But his ability to bluster and make up policy as he goes along only seems to strengthen his appeal among the Republican base. In terms of last night, it's less a question of "did Trump win the debate?" and more "did he do what he always does?" The answer to the latter is an affirmative "yes".
Regardless, the main beneficiary of last night's spectacle was Hillary Clinton who ends 2015 on a political high. Benghazi was buried, Sanders—a ludicrous challenger in the first place—faded from the media frenzy, Biden never ran, and Republicans who could beat her are stuck behind Trump and Cruz.
Very simply, the race for the White House will come down to a handful of states, as it always does. But Clinton can afford to lose the great traditional swing states—Ohio, Florida and Virginia – and still retain the White House if she wins the states Obama won by 5-10 per cent in 2010. Against a Trump-Cruz ticket, that seems like the worst-case scenario.
The race could still shift dramatically in February, when the first states start actually voting and we’ll see how accurate any of these polls have been, but if the Rubios and Christies remain mired among many, Hillary will sail to victory.
