“Your Money, Your Vote: The Republican Presidential Debate” aired Wednesday October 28 on CNBC featuring moderators Carl Quintanilla, Becky Quick and John Harwood in Boulder, Colorado. Despite topically being labeled as an economic debate, the high-lights of the evening came after a majority of the candidates espousing dissatisfaction at the moderators’ collective professionalism and integrity.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz received the largest round of applause after he fired off to the moderators. The upset that began what Fox News has comically coined as the “Cruz Missile” was a question from Quintanilla: “Congressional Republicans, Democrats and the White House are about to strike a compromise that would raise the debt limit, prevent a government shutdown, and calm financial markets of the fear that a Washington crisis is on the way. Does your opposition to it show you’re not the kind of problem-solver that American voters want?”. Cruz responded, “Let me say something at the outset. The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media.” Many noted that Cruz spoke with a different, more energetic air about him than at previous debates.
Cruz continued his rebuttal, “This is not a cage match. And you look at the questions—‘Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain?’ ‘Ben Carson, can you do math?’ ‘John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?’ ‘Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?’ ‘Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?’ How about talking about the substantive issues?”All of Cruz’s remarks were in specific reference to real debate questions proposed to the candidates that evening. The opening question, poised by Quinanilla? “What’s your biggest weakness?” Kasich took his time to express deep concern over his perception of the Amercian people’s likelihood to elect and support someone who Kasich believes to be largely unqualified. Kasich was not alone in dodging the question either entirely or in some degree.
Fiorina humored the remarks that she does not smile enough. Carson responded, “The weakness would be not really seeing myself in that position until hundreds of thousands of people began to tell me that I needed to do it.”
Throughout the debate the moderators displayed questionable ability to both regulate and steer candidates with repeated questionable speeches well over permitted time and suspected bias in their selection and choice of tone.
Perhaps the largest blunder occurred when Quick questioned Trump on his position on the H-1B visa and a supposed reference to Rubio as Mark Zuckerberg’s “personal senator” as Rubio expressed support in his immigration policy for the H-1B visa. “I never said that. I never said that,” Trump said. Quick apologized quickly and Trump questioned the fact checking ability of the moderators.
However, Quick was too quick on the draw. The reference to Rubio is indeed on the Trump campaign website. Megyn Kelly, a Fox News figure and debate host who had her own infamous exchanges with
Trump, took to twitter to express her sentiments on Quick’s debate performance
“This is why [you] never ask a [question] like this [without] having your source material at the ready,” Kelly tweeted.
Users on social media also noted the phrasing of the debate questions. “Senator Cruz, working women in this country still earn just 77 percent of what mean earn. And I know that you’ve said you’ve been very sympathetic to our cause. But you’ve also said that the Democrat’s moves to try and change this are the political show votes. I just wonder, what would you do as President to try and help in this cause?”
Quick injected herself into the question, a potential indicator of her position on an issue interfering with her ability to perform in an unbiased, journalistic manner. Quick also received backlash online and on several news outlets Thursday October 29 on her potentially misleading phrasing in the same question. “Women in this country still earn just 77 percent of what men earn” may paint an inaccurate picture of economic reality when discrimination is illegal and unconstitutional by sex. The statistic Quick means to mention is one that measured the total amount of money earned by men cumulatively, and the total sum of money earned by women cumulatively.
Presenting the claim that women earn just 77 percent of what men earn is only true if and only if the statistic specifically and only presents that information with the conditions of which the statistic was formed—one that did not compare the prosperity of men and women individually or allot for the individual differences between persons.
Additional information, like how the Bureau of Labor Statistics found men work on average 7 more hours a week than full time women, meaning that the total sum of money earned would be higher for the male who worked more hours in the year at the same wage of that of a female worker.
With those pieces of information deliberately or unintentionally left out, Quick’s statement came off as yet another “gotcha” question to the candidates. However, Fiorina and Cruz answered Quick.
“The median wage for women has dropped $733,” Cruz said in reference to the Obama presidency’s impact on women. “The truth of the matter is, big government benefits the wealthy, it benefits the lobbyists, it benefits the giant corporations. And the people who are getting hammered are small businesses, its single moms, its Hispanics. That is who I’m fighting for. The people that Washington leaves behind.”
Cruz is only off by a few dollars. The Bureau of Labor Statistics measured that the annual income for women dropped by $705 between 2008 and 2014, accounting for inflation. Cruz was not the only candidate to bring up the Obama administration’s effect on women.
“Becky, it is the height of hypocrisy for Mrs. Clinton to talk about being the first woman President, when every single policy she espouses and every single policy of President Obama has been demonstrably bad for women,” Fiorina said.
Quintanilla asked Rubio to explain why he’s skipping more votes while running for president. “Why not slow down, get a few more things done first or least finish what you start,” Quintanilla said. After expressing his view that “the time to act is now,” Rubio was met with another questionably phrased comment from the moderators that evening.
“So when the Sun-Sentinel says Rubio should resign, not rip us off..when they say you act like you hate your job, do you?” Quintanilla said.Bush used the opportunity to confront Rubio. “I’m a constituent of the senator and I helped him and I expected that he would do constituent service, which means that he shows up to work…when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work, Bush said.
Rubio listed Democratic and Republican examples of Senators that made presidential runs that missed similar or more of their votes—like John Kerry at more than sixty percent—before addressing Bush directly. “The only reason why you’re [focusing on] it now is because we’re running for the same position, and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you,” Rubio said. The crowd erupted with applause.
Paul, Huckabee, and Christie all had their hit or miss opportunities. Christie left the largest impression of the low percentage candidates when he too joined fellow candidates in going after the media and moderators.
Quintanilla asked Bush about “daily fantasy sports” and roundabout gambling in both the abstract and the gaming variety, where after Bush touted his 7-0 record in the fantasy league as of last Wednesday night, he went into other things.
Christie joined in “Carl, are we really talking about getting government involved in fantasy football?”“We have — wait a second, we have $19 trillion in debt. We have people out of work. We have ISIS and al Qaeda attacking us. And we’re talking about fantasy football? Can we stop?” Christie’s remarks were met with another round of loud applause.
Harwood also gave Christie his other high light of the evening, where the moderator picked Christie’s brain on his departure from the standard conservative belief on Climate Change. Harwood continuously, substantively interrupted Christie.
After some crosstalk, Christie finally made his remark. “John, do you want me to answer or do you want to answer? How are we going to do this? Because, I’ve got to tell you the truth, even in New Jersey what you’re doing is called rude.”
Trump snapped at the moderators as well, particularly when Quintanilla presented his question with a harsh tone and by suggesting Donald Trump is a real-life super villain. “That’s not a very nice way to ask a question,” Trump said.
Trump fired off at Kasich when he made his own remarks to Trump, but displayed a much calmer demeanor than the previous debate. The chair of the RNC has denounced NBNC, tweeting that the organization should “be ashamed of itself.”
Every candidate has since filed complaints formally about the debate. The next debate is 9p.m. Eastern
Time on Fox who partnered with the Wall Street Journal.
Barton Kleen
Managing Editor