1/28/16, "G.O.P. Debate Stars the Ghost of Donald Trump," NY Times, Frank Bruni, opinion, Des Moines, Iowa
"Donald Trump’s absence, of course, was the most compelling presence.
At
the Republican debate here on Thursday night, Fox News didn’t put up an
empty lectern. It didn’t need to. Trump was remembered. Trump was
invoked. His ghost was there, because he’d reshaped his Republican
rivals’ images, reconfigured the challenges in front of them, rewritten
the rules of this extraordinary race.
“Let’s
address the elephant not in the room tonight,” said Megyn Kelly at the
very start, and there was no doubt that the tusked behemoth in question
had an oddly shaped swirl of vaguely cantaloupe-colored hair. She then
asked Ted Cruz what message Trump’s failure to attend the event sent to
the voters of Iowa.
Cruz didn’t just discuss Trump. He imitated him.
“I’m
a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly,” Cruz
said. Addressing Ben Carson, he added: “You’re a terrible surgeon.”
“Now
that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way,” he
continued, “I want to thank everyone here for showing the men and women
of Iowa the respect to show up.”
He was mocking Trump, but in the process affirmed that everything revolves around Trump.
Almost a half-hour later, he was still making fun of Trump.
“If you guys ask one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage,” Cruz warned sarcastically.
Marco
Rubio got in on the action by chiming in: “Don’t worry, I’m not leaving
the stage no matter what you ask me.” The point of reference remained
Trump, who was also the subject of some of the first words out of Jeb
Bush’s mouth.
“I
kind of miss Donald Trump,” Bush said. “He was a little teddy bear to
me.” He then claimed that in debates past, he had taken on Trump more
boldly than any of his competitors on the stage. Trump, in other words,
was the proof of his mettle, the dragon that he alone set out to slay.
Wishful thinking.
Trump
got plenty of attention, because the drama offstage matched the drama
onstage. For the two days leading up to the event, the main story —
seemingly the only story — was his decision to skip it: Political suicide or stroke of genius?
In
the hours before it, CNN could speak of almost nothing but Trump. It
kept flashing footage of the fan-packed rally he had orchestrated just a
couple of miles from the debate, to compete with it.
“There are thousands who have waited hours throughout the day,” the anchor Erin Burnett marveled.
When
her colleague Anderson Cooper then interviewed a CNN correspondent at
the debate itself, the first question he asked her was about how the
debaters were likely to adjust to a Trump-less event.
“His
shadow is looming large, even though he is not there,” Cooper said to
the correspondent, then he turned to the network’s panel of political
analysts, who talked about Trump, Trump, Trump.
...........
And here I am, writing about Trump, Trump, Trump. It’s
impossible not to. It would be irresponsible not to, because believe it
or not, hate it or love it, he’s the Republican campaign’s great and
sobering lesson to the country, telling us things about its discontents
that we didn’t properly understand.
He’s the campaign’s undeniable force
of gravity, exerting a pull on everyone and everything around him.
You
could feel that pull at the debate, where the toughness with which
Kelly grilled Cruz and Rubio on immigration — even showing footage of
past remarks that caught them in flips, flops and contradictions — was a
clear demonstration of her readiness to put any candidate on the
skewer, not just Trump.
You
could feel that pull in the fieriness of many candidates’ manners and
the extremes to which they pushed their positions. Trump has set the
temperature of the conversation, and it’s a blistering one that had
Rubio pledging over and over to keep Guantánamo Bay open and stuff it
full of terrorists.
You
could feel that pull above all in the duration and emotionalism of the
immigration discussion itself. It’s Trump’s promised wall and Trump’s
pledges to deport millions of immigrants that have made this issue so
prominent and compelled Republican candidates to take harder lines than
they previously had.
“I’m
kind of confused,” Bush said of Rubio’s approach to immigration reform
over the years. “He led the charge to finally fix this immigration
problem that has existed now for, as Marco says, for 30 years. And then
he cut and run because it wasn’t popular among conservatives, I guess.”
Rubio
didn’t have a persuasive response, but later went after Cruz,
insinuating that he once had an approach to immigration less unyielding
than the one he’s promoting on the campaign trail.
“Now you want to trump Trump on immigration,” Rubio said.
Political
observers have been waiting for Rubio’s breakout moment, and many
predicted that he’d have it at this debate. He didn’t. Put frequently on
the defensive, he reverted to lines he’d used before and nuggets from
his stump speech, and he kept returning to ISIS and military might,
military might and ISIS. He came across as overly programmed,
one-dimensional and itchy to go to war.
And Cruz couldn’t banish a sour expression and an air of grievance.
Three
of the underdogs — Bush, Chris Christie and Rand Paul — had the best
moments. Christie circled back too frequently to his beloved, overworked
boast that he would make sure that Hillary Clinton never again got
close to the White House, but he had a terrific retort to Cruz’s and
Rubio’s explanations of their legislative histories on immigration
reform.
“I feel like I need a Washington-to-English dictionary,” Christie said.
Bush was genuinely funny, as when he reintroduced Trump toward the end of the debate.
“I mentioned his name again just if anybody was missing him,” Bush said.
Missing him? Not really. I’d be glad to have him gone for good.
But
he isn’t and he wasn’t, not on a night when the candidates molded their
answers to the reality (and the reality show) that he’s created, not
when they felt obliged to bring him up, not when he dominated the
discussion without even taking part of it. Nifty trick, that.
Elephant, bear, dragon: Those aren’t the right beasts.
...........
==========
Added: 1/28/16, Fox News owner, Rupert Murdoch, says "Donald" has been "getting all attention." The tweet is mentioned in NY Times article above:
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch on his twitter page says "tonight's debate" won't have "Donald getting all attention." Assuming "Donald" got "all attention" in prior debates, whose fault is that? Two GOP debates before tonight (Fox's third) were run by Murdoch: August 2015 and Nov. 2015. He's therefore saying his own staff is biased and incompetent. He then tells Republican candidates to "aim for Independents." What does that mean? And why suggest it during an event the rights for which were awarded by the Republican Party? At a time when "the largest party in America now is no party?"
