Vivek goes with a prefab hit against the moderators and pulls it off
Vivek seems to be running for cable news programmer in chief.
Ramaswamy comes out swinging against Ronna McDaniel.
Oh good, Vivek Ramaswamy, the guy who’s never been elected to anything, is here to explain why Republicans are losing elections. He’s complaining that Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk and Greg Gutfeld aren’t the debate moderators.
Strong initial answers from DeSantis and Haley
By a 13-point margin on Tuesday night, Ohio voters approved a ballot measure codifying the right to abortion into the state’s constitution. With that, Ohio became only the seventh state since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs to mete out a defeat to the pro-life movement at the ballot box.
The election results have led some Republican strategists to consider “a more modest, incremental approach” to the issue of abortion because “the pro-life movement is at a moment of tremendous peril right now.” But what would a compromise that doesn’t sacrifice the movement’s ultimate objectives look like? Nikki Haley articulated a vision for something like a compromise at the first GOP debate.
“Can’t we all agree that we should ban late term abortions?” she asked. “Can’t we all agree that we should encourage adoptions? Can’t we all agree that doctors and nurses who don’t believe in abortion shouldn’t have to perform them? Can’t we all agree that contraception should be available and can’t we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?”
If abortion opponents want to go back on offense on terrain where their views are reflective of a majority of American voters, those are good places to start.
Million-dollar question heading into tonight: How much do Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley direct their fire at Donald Trump, skipping yet another debate, and how much do they direct their fire at each other? On paper, both the Florida governor and the former South Carolina governor need to push the other one out of the race and attempt to set up a one-on-one battle with Trump as soon as possible. But Trump is still around 50 percent and/or well ahead – nationally, in Iowa, in New Hampshire, in South Carolina. If you’re not using a rare night of national television coverage to whack away at the frontrunner, what are you doing?
“He needs something to shake loose to break through,” ABC News White House Correspondent Mary Alice Parks said of Vivek Ramaswamy’s predicament going into tonight’s debate. She recalled asking the candidate what his strategy to generate traction would be, and Ramaswamy reportedly replied that he planned to be “unhinged.”
“When I pressed him on that, he said ‘candid, speak the truth,’” Parks clarified. If this preview is any indication of how the candidate will perform on the debate stage, we can expect a preternaturally unlikable display similar to the first debate. That production might have done Ramaswamy’s campaign few favors, but it gave his opponents ample opportunity to make an example of the cloying pharmaceutical entrepreneur. Lord knows the rest of the Republican field can use all the help they can get.
While the Republican presidential race remains largely static since the last GOP primary debate on September 28, the world has changed immeasurably in the interim.
The October 7 attack in which over 4,500 Israelis were slaughtered or wounded has already changed the complexion of the Middle East, and the Israeli invasion of Gaza with the explicit intent of dissolving the Hamas-led regime in the Gaza Strip will alter the balance of power further still. Over 200 people, including American citizens, are currently Hamas’s hostages. The U.S. maintains a growing naval presence off the Israeli coast. The ostensible aim of that deployment is to deter Iran from aggressing against U.S. forces, but that hasn’t been working. Since 10/7, there have been at least 40 attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria from Iran-backed terrorist proxies. Tonight alone, a $30 million drone was downed by the Iran-aligned Houthi militia in Yemen, and Joe Biden ordered a second series of retaliatory strikes on Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-sites in the region.
Accordingly, foreign policy should feature prominently in tonight’s debate. It is imperative that Republicans – and Americans, more broadly – know how these aspiring commanders-in-chief would navigate a similar crisis, or, indeed, this very crisis should they inherit it in 2025. At least, the candidates on stage should strive to strike a contrast with the Republican frontrunner who couldn’t be bothered to devote his attention to the crisis in the Middle East.
The other three candidates will be doing battle against crippling ennui. Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, and Chris Christie are all out of time to answer the second of James Stockdale’s famous debate questions: “Why am I here?”