DEBATE: The Day After

GOP Activists View the Debate

I am in Charleston, South Carolina.

I watched the debate in a movie theater hooked up to the Fox Business Network.   The event was organized by the Charleston GOP, a gathering of local activists that was designed to be covered by CNN.  A CNN reporter and cameraman told the group of 120 that he would be getting comments from us during and after the debate.   It was shown on Anderson Cooper.

You might have caught a glimpse of me: the handsome athlete wearing a navy blue blazer.   What I experienced was a little different from what I would have seen had I been at home, watching this on TV.
There was hooping and hollering--loudest for Trump with about 35% of the crowd.   Loud also for Cruz and Rubio with about 20%.  There were a few courageous cheers for Kasich and Bush.  Zero for Christie.

The people on either side of me whispered something the Republican inner circle consider to be settled: Lindsey Graham is a closeted homosexual.    Neither would support him--ever, for anything--because of this belief.

Based on the cheers and applause from this crowd of Republican activists it is apparently settled that Obama's presidency has been a nonstop disaster and that the economy is substantially worse today than it was when he took office amid the financial crisis.   The "establishment" wing of the Republican party (Bush, Kasich, Ryan, McConnell, Nicky Haley, Lindsey Graham) gets little respect.   The group cheered Cruz's contempt for the NY Times.   There was no cheering or murmurs of assent when Jeb Bush said that respect for Muslims was an essential part of our effort to find allies and coalition partners to fight ISIS.

CNN reporter warns us:  You will be on Anderson Cooper in a minute

This morning Lindsey Graham endorsed Jeb Bush.   Perhaps is that there is a significant body of Republican voters who want a responsible governing party, one that wants accommodation with Hispanics on immigration, compromise with Democrats to pass budgets, a party communicating inclusion.  That is what Graham is attempting to consolidate.    That body of voters was not visible to me last night.   The activists want a fight, not an agreement.

My sense of the debate highlights seem to be the same ones curated by the morning cable TV shows.

    Cruz doing a judo-reverse on Trump, saying that maybe Trump isn't eligible to be president, leaving Trump looking confused and speechless.

    Trump making Cruz look petty when Trump defended and celebrated New York.

    Christie slamming Obama repeatedly, ending with Christie's defense of policemen.

Every candidate is making his or her way to the cable shows.   Carly was asked flat out on MSNBC what she knew that others do not that would cause her to say that Hillary and Bill don't like each other's company.   Wasn't that a mean thing to say, she was asked?    Carly did not back off, asserting that Hillary and Bill didn't have a marriage, just a business arrangement to acquire power, and that if her husband did what Bill did she would leave him.

Republicans may hope to elevate the marriage of Bill and Hillary to "a matter of controversy" and subject of candidate and pundit comment and speculation among supporters, critics, marriage experts, family law attorneys, feminists, clergy, thinking that simply having the subject is on the table will create a feeling of weary exhaustion in the public--well, it might work.    I don't care about Carly and her husband and I don't want to hear about it.   And I really, really don't want to hear about Bill and Hillary.