Debate wrap-up: The view from the #RSG15 floor

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — In my experience, there’s no debate over the best way to watch a debate: have several hundred of your friends come over to watch it with you. The Red State Gathering kicked off last night in Atlanta, Georgia, hosted by Erick Erickson and Salem Media Group, at which I am an active participant. Before the debate, Erick had Leon Wolf, Katie Pavlich, and me on stage to provide some pre-debate analysis. Due to the schedule of RSG15, we had all missed the earlier debate, but news that Carly Fiorina had handily prevailed quickly moved through the crowd. We discussed what that might mean for Fiorina, and offered our predictions (as well as discussed a number of other topics from the audience Q&A). I predicted, as I did in my post yesterday, that the other candidates would mostly focus on themselves rather than attack others, even Donald Trump, and that Trump would find himself challenged in the unfamiliar debate format nonetheless.

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That turned out to be mostly true. Except for a notable shot at the beginning from Rand Paul, most of the candidates stayed away from frontal attacks on Trump, with a few even noting that Trump’s rhetorical style had spoken to a large number of voters. However, the Fox News moderating team of Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly, and Bret Baier provided more than enough frontal challenges to Trump that the other candidates didn’t need to bother.

That’s not to say that they focused solely on Trump with those challenges; the moderators spread that approach around widely. They challenged Marco Rubio on his support for exceptions to abortion opposition for rape and incest, which Rubio replied was inaccurate. Jeb Bush got questions about his association with Michael Bloomberg’s charity, Paul on his desire to cut off foreign aid to Israel, and so on. But Trump had to answer a broad range of questions about his changing positions on issues, statements that he’s made on the campaign trail, and his business practices, especially in regard to cronyism.

The immediate analysis in the media after the debate was that Trump had blown himself up. Trump no doubt fed that impression when he complained publicly about the moderators and Kelly in particular, but the front-runner almost always gets the most attention in these debates, and none of the questions asked were out of bounds. However, the reaction among the RSG15 crowd was not nearly as bad as from the analysts afterward. Trump’s brash, blunt, and sometimes uncivil responses got plenty of cheers from the ballroom last night, especially in the first half of the debate. The blunt style that propelled Trump to the top of the polls still resonates among conservatives looking for a plain-speaking fighter.

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What did appear to happen, though, was that Trump’s charm wore out the longer the debate went. Trump got some laughs at points, but the strong Trump cheering declined steadily in the second half of the debate. The enthusiasm spread out to other candidates, especially to Rubio and to Scott Walker, who got his best response when he made reference to Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and track record on the topic of national security. The only candidates that got significant amount of booing from the floor was Jeb Bush (on Common Core and the Bloomberg connection) and John Kasich (on Medicaid expansion).

By the end, unlike the earlier debate, there didn’t seem to be a breakout winner. Rubio and Walker came across best and seemed to get the most consistent response from the audience. On the terms of the debate, Kasich may have helped raise his profile a bit, as did Chris Christie, and Bush at least didn’t do any harm; he did get some cheers on his pro-life track record after the Bloomberg booing. The others on stage didn’t seem to fare as well in either context. Paul and Ted Cruz didn’t make the kind of impact one might expect with this crowd of conservative activists, and Ben Carson didn’t do particularly well in the format.

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The only one who may have done real harm to his standing was Donald Trump, but not so much because of any one answer. Trump was Trump, essentially, and he did exactly what got him to the front-runner podium in the first place. It’s one thing for voters to see it in short sound bites, though, and another to sit through two hours of Donald Trump, especially with so many other options competing with him. The first half of the debate may end up being Peak Trump, especially as more voters begin to seriously engage on the topic of choosing the next Republican nominee.

We’ll have plenty more from Red State Gathering 2015. Almost all of the contenders will arrive today for appearances and interviews, and we’ll try to talk with as many as we can. I’ll also do a panel discussion this morning on the Planned Parenthood videotapes with Katie Pavlich, and we’ll have more tomorrow as well. Keep an eye on social media for more developments, but in the meantime, enjoy the guest bloggers who are filling in for me.

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