Politico
By Gabriel Debenedetti
August 7, 2015
Democrats
wanted the 10 Republicans on the packed stage to bloody each other in
front of a national audience. They got their primetime brawl.
From
the first question, it was clear that the main event in Cleveland would
not disappoint followers of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s party —
even if the spectacle
created just two ready-for-attack-ad moments and failed to entirely
fell any of the GOP front-runners.
“It
was an intra-party food fight focused on who can get furthest to the
right on immigration and women’s issues, reminiscent of the 2012 GOP
debates that helped set our
path to victory,” said President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign
press secretary Ben LaBolt, evaluating the two-hour show that followed
the more demure second-tier affair earlier in the evening.
LaBolt’s
sentiments were quickly echoed by the Democratic front-runner’s
campaign itself, which blasted out a fundraising email minutes after the
debate’s close. “NOPE.
NOPE. NOPE.,” read the subject line.
“Should one of these guys be president?,” the body asks, above pictures of the 10 contenders. “NOPE. You can stop them. Donate.”
While
the candidates on the Fox News-hosted stage Thursday night focused
plenty of their derision at Obama and Clinton, enough of the personal
attacks came in the form
of direct Republican-on-Republican squabbling that few of those
individual lines caught national Democrats’ eyes as gaffes or campaign
fodder.
There
was Huckabee vs. Christie. There was Christie vs. Paul. There was Paul
vs. Trump. There was Bush vs. Trump. There was almost Huckabee vs.
Trump. There was Trump
vs. the moderators. There was Trump vs. the world.
“There
were few standout moments,” said longtime Democratic strategist Mo
Elleithee, executive director of Georgetown’s Institute of Politics and
Public Service. “But
for Democrats, this is less about a ‘moment’ and more about the general
tone. I can see Democrats going after the entire field for spending
less time talking about the middle class than they did about Planned
Parenthood.”
Instead, a select few Republican attempts to outflank each other shone in Democrat-blue eyes.
Multiple
top Democratic strategists pointed to a pair of particular exchanges —
involving top-tier candidates Scott Walker and Marco Rubio — centered
around abortions
and women’s health as particularly likely to pop up in party attack ads
before long.
Addressing
Walker for the first time early in the debate, host Megyn Kelly asked
him about a Wisconsin abortion law, pressing him on whether he would let
a mother die
rather than have an abortion.
Walker’s
answer, said Democratic operative Bill Burton — who co-founded the
Priorities USA super PAC that backed Obama in 2012 and is now supporting
Clinton in 2016 —
was “probably the most important of the night — it will live deep into
the general if he’s the nominee.”
Walker,
who has repeatedly hit Clinton over her support of Planned Parenthood,
stood his ground, insisting to Kelly, “I’m pro-life, I’ve always been
pro-life, and I’ve
got a position that I think is consistent with many Americans out there
in that I believe that there is an unborn child that’s in need of
protection out there. And I’ve said many a time that that unborn child
can be protected and that there are many other
alternatives that can also protect the life of that mother.”
Later
in the debate, Rubio insisted to Kelly that he had never been in favor
of an exception to an abortion ban that would allow the procedure in
cases of incest or rape.
Rubio’s determination to appear as a hardliner on the issue raised
eyebrows of Democrats from Brooklyn to Washington. Elleithee called the
exchange the “oddest moment of the night.”
“I’m
not sure that that’s a correct assessment of my record,” Rubio said. “I
have never said that. And I have never advocated that. What I have
advocated is that we pass
a law in this country that says all human life at every stage of its
development is worthy of protection.”
Burton
noted that the question of choice played a more prominent role than
expected in the debate — a noteworthy development considering the
issue’s potency while many
Republicans continue to insist on defunding Planned Parenthood and
Clinton recently took a strong stance in support of the embattled group.
Nonetheless,
figures from across the party acknowledged that the main story line of
the night would, as predicted, be the poll-leading Trump, and Democrats
remained more
than happy to let him take the spotlight — particularly as they saw Jeb
Bush, who has scared many Democrats with his fundraising prowess, “fade
into the wallpaper,” in LaBolt’s words.
Throughout
the evening, Trump repeatedly pushed back against the notion that he
was too close to Democratic positions, all the while ridiculing Clinton —
at one point
saying that the former secretary of state only attended his wedding
because he had donated to her family’s foundation.
To that, the Clinton campaign responded simply: “That hurt our feelings.”
On Thursday night, such puzzled levity was common. It was not a night for targeted attack, but a night to let the show roll on.
“Donald
Trump was Donald Trump,” said Elleithee, a veteran of Clinton’s 2008
campaign and the Democratic National Committee. “I’ve given up trying to
understand what that
means.”
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