Source: TheGuardian
Donald Trump will stand center stage at the first Republican primary debate this week, Fox News has announced, but a sitting governor was nudged aside for a retired neurosurgeon.
The billionaire real-estate mogul will be joined by former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Ohio governor John Kasich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie inched into the debate by threadbare leads in the polls, edging competitors off the stage.
From left to right, across a stage, the candidates will be: Christie, Rubio, Carson, Walker, Trump, Bush – the two highest polling in the middle – Huckabee, Cruz, Paul and Kasich.
Kasich was quick to praise the announcement – and his home state, where the debate will be held. “After all, no Republican has ever won the presidency without Ohio. As governor, I am glad to welcome my fellow debate participants to our great state and I look forward to discussing the issues facing our country with them on Thursday,” he said.
Exclusion from the main event bodes ill for Rick Perry and Lindsay Graham, who have struggled to portray themselves as viable candidates, and to distinguish themselves from the jumbled, 17-person pack.
Rick Perry will participate in a separate, earlier debate offered by Fox News for the candidates who did not make the main event. He will join former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former New York governor George Pataki, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, senator Lindsey Graham and Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal.
On Twitter, Perry said immediately after that announcement that he was looking forward to “a serious exchange of ideas & positive solutions”.
A Santorum spokesman called the debate selection process “incredibly flawed” and pointed out that “national polls are meaningless in August”.
Christie’s admission to from the main debate will be a relief to his campaign, which has struggled against his declining poll numbers and a cloud of suspicion and distaste around the governor. Christie has failed to regain the public’s high regard that he acquired after hurricane Sandy in 2012; since then his administration has become mired in accusations of misconduct and cronyism.
Perry, Texas’s longest-serving governor, has sparred at length with Trump, but he has struggled in the polls for years, ever since a string of humiliating bumbles during his failed presidential campaign in 2012.
Fox has announced a few details of the main debate’s format. Candidates will have a minute to respond to questions from moderators, and then 30 seconds for rebuttals. If named by a competitor, a candidate will have a chance for further rebuttal at the moderators’ discretion. Co-host Facebook will also periodically provide questions.
Although each candidate on the main stage will have his own particular challenges – Bush the shadow of his brother’s foreign policy, Walker a bad record on jobs, Rubio an inconsistency on immigration – but all will face the large, unpredictable challenge of Trump. The real estate mogul has doggedly attackedhis rivals, especially Bush and Walker, with any taunt, gibe or hyperbole that comes to mind.
Several candidates, including Bush, Kasich and Graham, have already presented themselves as antidotes of common sense to Trump’s relentless bombast. But few have engaged Trump directly, preferring to change the topic or treat his rhetoric disdainfully. Those who have taken him on have suffered surprising consequences, as when Trump read out Graham’s cellphone number on national television.
Trump’s biggest challenge is also Trump, Republican strategists say. Most expect the flamboyant chief executive to self-destruct as his inflammatory rhetoric and antipathy to nuance or niceties drive voters, conservative and otherwise, away from him. Establishment Republicans have already voiced strong concerns about him and expect his popularity to quickly fade.
The Wall Street Journal, for instance – owned by conservative mogul Rupert Murdoch – last month declared Trump a “catastrophe” as part of a scathing editorial.
Trump could use the debate to surprise and rebuff critics by showing off his grasp of issues like immigration, national security and the economy.
Or, as most predict, he could press on with the broad declarations of his improvised campaign, such as “I’m, like, a really smart person,” and that “tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border” from Mexico.