Leubsdorf: Trump still topped debate

If any helped themselves, it was former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who displayed a modicum of moderation while not deviating from conservative positions, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was largely unchallenged while directing his comments at the GOP’s Trumpian base.

But Trump’s dominance was underscored as all but former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson raised their hands when asked if they would back him if he again won the GOP nomination.

One of the few surprises was that the chief target was not DeSantis, perhaps reflecting a sense that he is fading though still second to Trump in most GOP polls. Instead, the rapidly rising Vivek Ramaswamy, a glib 37-year-old entrepreneur and Trump defender, drew repeated rejoinders for his inexperience, foreign policy positions and carefully honed applause lines.

“I’ve had enough of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT,” Christie told him, invoking the artificial intelligence processing tool.

Ramaswamy touted the need for “a political outsider” to start a “revolution” in Washington — where have you heard that before? — prompting former Vice President Mike Pence to say, “now is not the time for on-the-job training.” Christie called him “the same type of amateur” as former President Barack Obama.

When Ramaswamy opposed more U.S. aid for Ukraine, Haley assailed that and his opposition to helping Taiwan, Israel and other U.S. “friends.” “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows,” said Haley, who was Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. Ramaswamy shot back, wishing her “well in your future career on the boards of (defense contractors) Lockheed (Martin) and Raytheon.”

Haley opposed Pence’s call for a national standard limiting abortions, declaring “we need to stop demonizing this issue” and seek a “consensus” while maintaining opposition to abortion rights. “Consensus is the opposite of leadership,” said Pence.

It took nearly an hour before the Fox News moderators —Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum — raised the former president’s four pending indictments. But their questions provoked some of the sharpest debates of the evenings, and loud boos from the audience when Christie and Hutchinson said Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election disqualified him from returning to the presidency.

“Someone has to stop normalizing his conduct,” Christie said. “The conduct is beneath the office of the president of the United States.” As boos overwhelmed the applause, Christie replied, “Booing is allowed, but it does not change the truth.”

Hutchinson, meanwhile, raised the possibility of Trump being barred from the presidency by a clause in the post-Civil War 14th Amendment that bars from office anyone “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.

But most of the two-hour debate focused on issues, which pre-debate polls showed was what Republican voters wanted.

By the way, Dukakis wasn’t the only one of those seven 1988 Democratic “dwarves” to achieve some political success. Al Gore became the 1992 Democratic vice presidential nominee and its 2000 presidential nominee, albeit a losing one.

And 1988 also-ran Joe Biden outlasted and outdid them all, becoming vice president and then president. The 2024 dwarves will be lucky to match them.