Trump steals show at first debate
And they’re off!
After two debates, featuring 17 Republican presidential candidates, over a combined three hours, I surprised myself last Thursday.
I didn’t call a suicide hotline.
First, there was that hour-long “children’s table” debate, featuring seven Republicans who didn’t make it into the “Main Event.”
Fox News made the first gaffe.
It staged it in the nearly empty Quicken Loans Arena, where TV viewers could see mostly empty seats in a venue that holds 20,562.
When one of the candidates uttered an applause-worthy line, you could hear a flake of dandruff drop.
Not that I believed any of them, but I kept hearing that Hillary Clinton and President Obama are both the spawn of Satan.
There were a total of 34 verbal attacks launched against Clinton, Obama and Obamacare during that first hour.
The anti-Obama fervor reached a crescendo as that first debate ended, when the Fox News hosts asked what each of the seven would do during their first day in the Oval office.
They claimed they’d, undo, rip-up, tear-up, use a big old bottle of a bottle of Wite-Out庐 on, defund, revoke, suspend and repeal, fold, spindle and mutilate, every action Obama signed, or agreed to since he took office.
In fact, during the three hours of last Thursday’s debates, it was hard finding something those 17 candidates are for.
When the dandruff settled from that first debate, it was the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, Carly Fiorina, who seemed to get the most praiseworthy attention from the cable news pundits.
She’d managed to wow them with her blistering attacks on Hillary Clinton.
She also claimed she knows how to run the country. That’s questionable, since she was forced to resign from Hewlett-Packard before she could run it into the ground.
Then came the “Main Event.”
“Show of hands. Is there anyone on stage who is unwilling to pledge your support for the eventual nominee of the Republican Party? And pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person,” asked Fox News’ debate moderator Brett Baier, as the first question of the second debate.
Up shot Donald Trump’s right hand. And up came boos from the crowd.
The other nine Republicans stood with their hands to their sides, while Trump issued what could be considered an act of political blackmail.
Trump knows that if he doesn’t win the Republican nomination, or if he doesn’t get the complete backing of the Republican Party, his run as an Independent candidate, would certainly help put Hillary Clinton (or any other Democratic nominee) in the White House.
“The Donald” is a power-broker. But playing hardball, when the stakes are higher than he’s ever played them, set off a tremor through Quicken Loans Arena.
While Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz and Dr. Ben Carson, avoided intra-debate debates, Chris Christie and Rand Paul wanted to mix it up with their fellow candidates.
Paul attacked Trump. Paul attacked Christie. Christie fired a volley of strong words in Paul’s direction. Paul responded with his own.
In fact, Christie, who’s always been known as a “straight-talker,” appeared to have met his match with Paul.
But it was Trump, with his professed disdain for politically correct speech, who provided the debate’s showstopper.
When debate moderator Megyn Kelly started telling Trump, “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals,'” Trump blurted out, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”
That’s Trump’s idea of a joke. Kelly didn’t find the humor in it.
She pressed him further. “For the record, it was well beyond Rosie O’Donnell,” she added.
She said he’d once told one of his Celebrity Apprentice contestants that it would be a “pretty picture” to see her on her knees.
Out sprang Trump’s avowed disinterest in political correctness, along with his dissatisfaction with Megyn Kelly.
“I’ve been nice to you, although that could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me,” he replied.
Whenever Republicans have to deny that they engage in a “War on women,” they know they only have their presidential frontrunner to blame.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net