The 12th Republican Presidential Debate 2016 by CNN/Salem/Washington Times [March 10] [8:30pm EST]

lol @ trump slapping chris on the back on the post debate interview. pretty much sums up the night to me
 
Aren't you from Eastern Europe? Do you have citizenship here?

Nope, I've lived in Europe (residence there, never had citizenship there). Wish I did, lot less hassle at the airports.
 
You think people don't realize that not every business venture he has gone into has been an unbridled success?

Reminds me of people who thought people who didn't like the second Matrix weren't smart enough to get it.

Dont be silly, Join The Don.
He has small hands, like his fans.
 
Pundits speculating The Don was deliberate low energy.

I don't know if he was getting RNC pressure, and if he would care if he did. Possible back door thing that unless he changes they would screw him at a brokered convention?
 
Pundits speculating The Don was deliberate low energy.

I don't know if he was getting RNC pressure, and if he would care if he did. Possible back door thing that unless he changes they would screw him at a brokered convention?
he won the last round of delegates i think i agree with the term "running out the clock"

dont fix what isn't broken, its really him vs ted and he already has the upper hand vs ted in florida so why change anything
 
^^^

Made for a boring debate! More drama between Bernie and Hillary - who woulda thunk it.
 
Rubio just did a post-debate interview with Wolf. He was actually pretty reasonable and impressive. I'd still never vote for him because he's a fraud and his policies are corrupt and moronic, but he did look good. Did he look good in the debate as well?
 
No, Rubio has only won one state, and one territory.

Cruz has won eight states.

Big difference.
Even if Rubio wins Florida at this point his "electability" platform is gone. He's in it as a Trump saboteur from here on out.
 
I really wish there was a 4+ party system.

Would love to have:
Sanders - Modern Socialist Party
Trump - Maverick Independent Party
Cruz - Republican Party
Clilnton - Democratic Party
Paul - Libertarian Party

All on stage in a no holds barred debate.
 
Rubio just did a post-debate interview with Wolf. He was actually pretty reasonable and impressive. I'd still never vote for him because he's a fraud and his policies are corrupt and moronic, but he did look good. Did he look good in the debate as well?

I only watched the end and he killed Trump on Cuba which is a subject I'd expect him to kill Trump on.
 
I really wish there was a 4+ party system.

Would love to have:
Sanders - Modern Socialist Party
Trump - Maverick Independent Party
Cruz - Republican Party
Clilnton - Democratic Party
Paul - Libertarian Party

All on stage in a no holds barred debate.

Johnson could also run on the Libertarian ticket, he would be solid.
 
I only watched the end and he killed Trump on Cuba which is a subject I'd expect him to kill Trump on.

I read his response on climate change. Was not a fan.

I usually feel like I'm pretty good on political predictions, but Rubes has woefully underachieved. I thought he'd be the favorite by now.
 
Trump's stance will help him in the general election though. A place Rubio will not be.

I saw a funny post a few weeks back comparing Trump positioning himself for the general to Velociraptors learning to open doors.
 
Rubio just did a post-debate interview with Wolf. He was actually pretty reasonable and impressive. I'd still never vote for him because he's a fraud and his policies are corrupt and moronic, but he did look good. Did he look good in the debate as well?

I don't think so. I think Trump has destroyed and ruined Rubio at this point. Rubio can win an argument on Cuba but do the masses care? Not really. If rubio was so great he would be doing better then losing every dang state via 3rd place often poorly and several knocks percentage points below 2nd. Trump attacks against Rubio as little and basically being a whiny b!tch seem to resonate with more voters than anything Rubio can insult Trump with.

Trump destroyed Bush and is now doing it to Rubio. Only Cruz can hang with Trump because they are both anti-establishment and appeal to that large part of voter base. It also helps that Cruz is good at twisting words, lying and selling a utopian view of what he will do.

Rubio will be done soon is my guess.
 
In the 12th Republican Debate, Candidates Lower Volume as Five Key Primaries Near
By JONATHAN MARTIN and PATRICK HEALY
MARCH 10, 2016

repubdebate-346-master675-v2.jpg

MIAMI — After 11 adversarial debates, the two chief antagonists to Donald J. Trump largely abandoned their strategy of brutally attacking him on Thursday night, choosing instead to use their final face-off before next week’s round of big Republican primaries to project gravitas and champion conservative positions on trade, jobs and Israel.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida passed up easy chances to challenge Mr. Trump on trade and immigration and mostly refrained from going on the offensive.

The debate’s first hour was so subdued and policy-focused that Mr. Trump was prompted to say, “So far, I cannot believe how civil it’s been up here.” But Mr. Cruz finally began accepting invitations from the moderators to criticize Mr. Trump, though his jabs lacked the intensity of earlier debates.

It was as if Mr. Trump’s rivals had decided, after so many months, that there was no upside anymore at trying to beat him at his own game.

The celebrity showman has proved a master at delivering cutting asides, memorable insults and crude remarks, and his rivals tried without success to bully the bully and beat him at his own game.

On Thursday night, they moved on, come what may.

The CNN moderators gamely tried to provoke conflict, baiting Mr. Trump at one point by noting that Mr. Rubio had suggested his “numbers don’t add up” and later interjecting to point out that Mr. Cruz had likened Mr. Trump to Hillary Clinton.

But neither Mr. Trump nor his opponents showed much of an appetite for blood. What gentle attacks came were mostly limited to policy. “He’s right about the problems,” Mr. Cruz said. “But his solutions don’t work.”

The political stakes were higher than at any of the previous debates because this forum was one of the last high-profile, widely seen opportunities for Mr. Trump’s rivals to sow doubts about his candidacy and to slow his march to the nomination.

If Mr. Trump scores decisive wins across the five populous states voting on Tuesday, he will be well positioned to clinch the Republican nomination before the party’s convention in July. There are 165 total delegates at stake in the winner-take-all primaries in Ohio and Florida, while Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina together offer 193 delegates, distributed proportionally. Mr. Trump is ahead in public polls in Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina; the race appears closer in Ohio, with some polls indicating that John Kasich, the governor there, has a small lead.

The newly sober nature of the Republican race, for a night at least, was clear from the first exchanges over trade, a major issue in the Ohio primary, as the four Republicans largely agreed that trade deals were needed to protect American workers and create jobs in the United States. Mr. Trump was challenged over the hiring of foreign workers for some of his businesses, which he both defended and minimized — remarks that were less surprising than the fact that none of his rivals attacked his hiring record, as they did in a debate last week.

Instead, Mr. Trump went unchallenged as he boasted that, as a businessman, he was best positioned to negotiate better trade deals in America’s favor.

“Nobody else on this dais knows how to change it like I do, believe me,” he said.

Mr. Trump seemed almost to invite attacks from his rivals, acknowledging that, despite his hard-line rhetoric on immigration, he uses foreign workers at some of his businesses by exploiting the nation’s immigration policies, particularly H1-B visas for foreign workers.

“I’m a businessman, and I have to do what I have to do,” Mr. Trump said. He added that he “shouldn’t be allowed” to have access to foreign labor, saying, “It’s very bad for workers, very unfair to our workers.” He said he would suspend H1-B visas for at least one or two years.

But none of Mr. Trump’s rivals pounced on that admission. Their withholding of fire appeared to reflect a calculation that they had gained little from trading insults with Mr. Trump. Acknowledging the minimal enthusiasm for free trade among rank-and-file Republican primary voters, they handled the issue gingerly and sought to turn the focus to how much trade could benefit American workers and consumers.

“I absolutely will blow the whistle and begin to stand up for the American worker,” Mr. Kasich said. “But we don’t want to lock the doors and pull down the blinds and leave the world, because, frankly, if we do that, prices will go up, people will buy less, other people will be out of work.”

Mr. Rubio pointed to the imperative that United States businesses be able to sell goods abroad. “We have to have access to the hundreds of millions of people in the world today who can afford to buy things,” he said.

The greatest pressure was on Mr. Rubio, whose candidacy all but collapsed in the contests held this week, and who is facing the possibility of a humiliating loss in his home state, Florida, on Tuesday.

He entered the debate after saying that he regretted lobbing juvenile insults at Mr. Trump in recent weeks, a strategy that backfired spectacularly on Mr. Rubio, whom many in the Republican mainstream had seen as their best hope in the race.

While Mr. Rubio targeted Mr. Trump on Thursday night, he did not do so with the gusto that he showed earlier. His modulated tone and manner were signals that if his campaign was nearing the end, he wanted to exit the race on a higher plane.

When Mr. Rubio did decide to take on Mr. Trump, he did it sideways, saying that Mr. Trump had tapped into a vein but that his style would have repercussions.

“I know that a lot of people find appeal in the things Donald says, because he says what people wish they could say,” Mr. Rubio said. “The problem is presidents can’t just say anything they want, because it has consequences here and around the world.”

Mr. Trump’s temperament, a subject of deep anxiety among Republican Party leaders, came under unusually intense scrutiny during the debate. Mr. Trump was challenged over his statement on Wednesday that “Islam hates us,” but in a departure from his much-criticized performance at last week’s debate, he kept his quick temper in check and responded with a minimum of defensiveness.

Mr. Trump even let some barely veiled shots go without responding. Mr. Cruz seemed to mock Mr. Trump’s vague tough talk, saying, “The answer is not simply to yell ‘China bad, Muslims bad.’ ” But Mr. Trump did not respond in kind.

When his rivals did challenge him, Mr. Trump did not exactly turn the other cheek, but he was plainly trying to show discipline and make clear to Republicans that he was ready to focus on Mrs. Clinton. He projected a certain inevitability to his nomination, noting that he was set to receive an endorsement on Friday from a former rival, the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and suggesting that more voters were taking part in the Republican primaries than ever because of him.

“They’re voting out of enthusiasm; they’re voting out of love,” Mr. Trump said, a pointed rejoinder to news reports about violence breaking out at his rallies. “We are going to beat the Democrats, we are going to beat Hillary or whoever it may be, and we’re going to beat them soundly.”

Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz, who have been fierce adversaries for months and are now facing off in Florida, where they both have family roots, had moments where they teamed up against Mr. Trump, who is leading in the Florida polls. They were especially hard on him over Israel, challenging Mr. Trump over his comments that he would be a “neutral guy” in negotiating the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

While Mr. Cruz spoke fiercely on Israel’s behalf, perhaps mindful of the many Jewish Republican voters in Florida, Mr. Rubio was more polite toward Mr. Trump, suggesting that perhaps he misunderstood that being neutral could undercut Israel’s interests and security.

Mr. Trump insisted that Israel would be an “absolute priority” in a Trump administration but that his focus would be to broker a historic peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians and to be an arbiter at the negotiating table.

“I would like to give it a shot,” Mr. Trump said about a possible peace deal. “Very, very pro-Israel, nobody is more pro-Israel, but I would like to give it a shot.”

Mr. Trump’s commanding victories on Tuesday in Mississippi and Michigan underscored the durability of his candidacy and gave him a lift after he suffered a pair of losses and closer-than-expected victories last weekend. But he netted only 15 more delegates on Tuesday than Mr. Cruz, who captured Idaho and finished second in the other states casting ballots.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/politics/republican-debate.html
 

Forum statistics

Threads
1,275,121
Messages
57,969,260
Members
175,884
Latest member
cloudfair
Back
Top