I think Scott failed a bit in this debate. Saying that 90 percent of American aid to Ukraine is a “loan” that will be paid back by NATO is really not right. He’s trying to say that the vast bulk of money is spent in the American defense contracting industry. That’s true. But the money and materiel it produces is consumed.
In Florida, “the Democratic Party lies in ruins” – DeSantis barging into the Haley-Scott fight to brag on his throne of skulls.
Fox pitting Haley and Scott against each other, unprompted, feels like a signal to donors and party officials to focus on winnowing the field of native sons and daughters in the Palmetto State to one ahead of the New Year.
It’s only the second primary debate, and so many of them sound exhausted. Does not bode well.
Jeff writes: “Haley is now genuinely scrapping for keeps with DeSantis to be the non-Trump alternative.”
Yep — she’s taken on Trump, Vivek, Scott, and DeSantis directly tonight. No idea how it will play with the voters, but it’s clear that she’s determined to not be a wall flower in the final pre-Iowa months of this campaign.
Haley is acting like a pol who wants to be a front-runner.
DeSantis says he’ll be the first president since 1988 who has served in a war overseas. Every election since the Cold War that has pit a veteran against a non-veteran, the veteran has lost. But that’s a small sample size and perhaps a coincidence.
The Haley-DeSantis exchange did not go well for Haley.
We’re an hour and forty minutes in, the candidates are tired and irritated with each other, they know their opportunities for having a big dramatic moment are dwindling, and right now you can see it in the faces of Haley and DeSantis. Ironically, so far, I feel like they’ve both had good arguments.
Haley’s attack on DeSantis for banning fracking is weird, because nobody actually believes that PRESIDENT Ron DeSantis (as opposed to Governor DeSantis, having to deal with the Everglades and the FL coast as a political issue) would ban fracking.
The real takeaway: Haley is now genuinely scrapping for keeps with DeSantis to be the non-Trump alternative.
Yes, Pence sounds like a throwback. But he also was vice president under Donald Trump.