I thought Friday’s Iowa forum in which Tucker Carlson was licensed by the Blaze to interrogate the non-Trump candidates was useful. At least for setting a baseline on how these campaigns may go. My impressions in brief:
Asa Hutchinson got figuratively snapped in half over the issue of transgenderism. Unlike the childhood victims of the moral panic that we are born into the wrong bodies, I suspect he’ll recover, just not politically.
Mike Pence. Where to begin? I admired his straight-up answer about doing his constitutional duty on January 6. He’s being slammed for saying “That’s not my concern” as Carlson described America’s urban blight and whether there were tradeoffs between solving domestic issues and focusing on Ukraine’s war with Russia. It’s unfair; Pence was trying to communicate that he is concerned about American cities, and that America can do both foreign and domestic policy at the same. But, it looked bad, and he didn’t really address the idea being presented by Carlson either. The lack of substance made the soundbite worse.
Tim Scott. He is smooth, even under pressure.
Nikki Haley. Shockingly, Tucker Carlson did not go at Nikki Haley over foreign policy. And Haley surprised me most of all — skillfully turning every single question to the concerns of American voters themselves in relatable language. I thought she was the most determined to address persuadable voters. Maybe there was a little bit of pandering there, but when she talked about cleaning house in the intel agencies, I wanted to believe her. She was running a pocketbook campaign. That’s smart!
Vivek. Great energy. Preposterous candidate.
Ron DeSantis. Yeah, when he’s talking about what he did as governor and during the Covid era, he shines. And I can squint and see him taking chunks out of Donald Trump. He’s sincerely nerdy about the issues, and by combining it with a ready political will, he makes the case for himself as an effective leader. He managed to displease Noah Rothman on his Ukraine answer, without satisfying me. He still hasn’t quite found his comfort zone there. But overall, he and Haley came out on top of this forum, with Scott just behind.
The Blaze. This was an interesting gauntlet. But at times the hosts seemed to be turning it into a Trump event minus Trump. Kari Lake was invited to comment and basically said that “this is the B team” and that she wants Trump. We know you feel that way, Kari. She also was invited to improve upon the answers given by candidates who won their elections. A friend said this looked like a party that didn’t want to win. And upon seeing Lake treated as an expert, I found it hard to say otherwise.
Issues like “election security” move a lot of base Republican voters. But after January 6, my bet is that a lot of independent voters are spooked when Republicans talk about this.
Trump was one of the most unpopular figures ever to run for the presidency. In 2016, he ran against the second-most unpopular person to run for the presidency. She won a few more popular votes than he did, as you would expect and as the polls predicted. He won the votes where it mattered most to the outcome. Most independent voters do not have a hard time believing Trump lost in 2020. There’s also an “impotence” problem inherent in the issue. If the Dems were cheating, why didn’t you stop them? If that old coot Biden can pull one over on you, why should we trust you or your party with anything important again?