Candidates throw down in Republican showdown

It was a bit of a slugfest.

Prior to Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate, a “prep” memo was supposedly leaked from Never Back Down, a pro-DeSantis political action committee, advising Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to “take a sledgehammer” to young biotech entrepreneur and investor Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy’s boost in the polls is a surprise to some, considering he has no prior political experience and the fact that many can’t even pronounce his name – it’s “vi-VAKE,” which “rhymes with cake,” as he himself rapped on cable news recently. (Yes, rapped.)

Ramaswamy took plenty of heat, but not from DeSantis. Former VP Mike Pence scoffed at him, saying, “Now is not the time for on-the-job training,” which earned a chorus of boos. Not a quarter of the way through the debate, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie snapped, “I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT.” Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley also attacked, saying, “The problem that Vivek doesn’t understand is, he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia,” starting a heated back-and-forth.

Ramaswamy landed a few zingers himself, offering warm wishes to Haley for her “future seat on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon” over her support for military assistance to Ukraine. Say what you want about the biotech bro (and people indeed have plenty to say,) but his last event in Cedar Rapids had a huge turnout, and opponents don’t attack candidates by whom they don’t feel threatened.

Nobody’s threatened by Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota, whose campaign offered $20 gift cards to new donors for contributing just a buck in order to get him to the number of unique donors to qualify for the debate. No one’s really concerned about former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, either. Every time Hutchinson appeared on screen, all I could think about was how he briefly crashed a date I was on at a hotel bar in West Des Moines last weekend. (True story.) But I did catch his comment that former President Donald Trump is “morally disqualified from being President again.”

Verbal sparring made for an entertaining show, but candidates who didn’t join the fray weren’t as likely to get noticed. In a way, it’s a paradox – many of us GOP voters seek to move on from Donald Trump and his scorched-earth debate style only to ignore the ones who don’t attack like pit bulls. It doesn’t bode well for South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, whose conduct as the adult in the room ultimately made for an unremarkable performance. It’s a shame, considering the inherent positivity of his message as the draw to his campaign.

But whether their star rises or falls after the debate, each candidate onstage Wednesday night had the opportunity to make their case to GOP voters without the “elephant not in the room” capturing all the attention. Haley continued her call for pragmatism in the national abortion debate. Pence sermonized in his usual dignified and upstanding manner (however stuffy and rehearsed it seemed.)

Ramaswamy smiled while dodging blows. DeSantis boasted about keeping Florida open during COVID. Scott reminded us that the American dream is still alive. Christie joked after being asked a stupid question about UFOs. It was an interesting debate. No one ran away with it, but they came to play – and so will GOP voters on January 15.

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