Friday, January 29, 2016

Fox News Debate Cartoon


Trump overshadows Republican debate even as he sits it out



Even in boycotting a debate with his Republican rivals, front-runner Donald Trump managed to upstage the event on Thursday with a typical dramatic flourish.
Instead of attending a seventh debate, the former reality TV star held a competing event across town that he said raised $6 million for U.S. military veterans. In doing so, he cast a shadow over his rivals, who frequently tossed barbs his way.
Trump's gamble that he could leave the battlefield to his rivals for one night appeared to pay off, with just days to go before Iowa holds the first nominating contest of the 2016 election season. No one appeared to emerge as a central challenger to him during the two-hour face-off in Des Moines.
Trump's refusal to participate in the debate out of anger that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was a moderator prompted a flurry of last-minute phone calls with Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes that failed to resolve their dispute.
A Fox News (FOXA.O) statement said Trump requested that Fox contribute $5 million to his charities in exchange for his attendance, which the network turned down.
The debate was the type of event Republicans would routinely have without the flamboyant Trump on stage, and it lacked the electricity that he brings to the party's search for a nominee for the Nov. 8 election.
Without Trump on stage, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie found themselves with more room to make their case to voters seeking a more mainstream candidate.
Both men have an eye on the Feb. 9 first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire, which comes on the heels of the Iowa caucuses on Monday and where an establishment Republican like them might have a better chance of standing out.
Senator Ted Cruz from Texas and Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, the two top challengers to Trump in Iowa, engaged in squabbles over immigration and national security and did not appear to threaten Trump's lead. He holds the edge over Cruz in polls of Iowa Republicans.
Trump's rivals mocked his decision to sit out the debate and found ways to criticize him.
"I’m a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly, and Ben, you're a terrible surgeon," Cruz told his rivals, including Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, as the debate opened. His next sentence began: "Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way."
Bush, who has been a frequent target of Trump's attacks, turned a question about religious tolerance into an attack on Trump's proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
"Donald Trump, for example — I mentioned his name again if anybody was missing him — Mr. Trump believed in reaction to people’s fears that we should ban all Muslims. Well, that creates an environment that’s toxic in our own country," Bush said.
Cruz, after a series of questions, said: "If you ask me one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage."
In a swipe at both Trump and Cruz, Rubio chimed in: "Don't worry, I'm not going to leave the stage no matter what you ask me."
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With his veterans' event drawing live TV news coverage on Fox News competitors CNN and MSNBC, Trump absorbed plenty of media attention.
He clung to his insistence that Fox News had treated him badly. He has complained that Kelly insulted him at a debate in August and that a statement from the network earlier this week had belittled him.
Two other Republican candidates, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, joined Trump on stage after participating in a debate of low-polling candidates.
Not so former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore.
"I’m not about to go across town tonight to carry the coat for some billionaire," he said at the "undercard" debate.
There was some mystery as to which veterans' groups would receive the money raised at the event, which included $1 million from Trump himself. His campaign did not say which group was getting the funds.
Trump, with just one day's notice on a weeknight, was able to fill to capacity a hall at Drake University that holds 700.
"I didn’t want to be here, to be honest, I wanted to be about five minutes away" at the debate, Trump told the crowd. "When you’re treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights - whether we like it or not."
Trump dominated social media during the debate, leading the entire Republican pack in Twitter mentions throughout the first half of the debate, according to data from social media analytics firm Zoomph.
Trump was by far the most-searched-for candidate on Google during the first half of the debate, at one point outpacing the second-most-searched-for candidate, Rubio, by nearly four-to-one, according to Google Trends data.
Trump's support in opinion polls, much of it from blue-collar men, has not wavered for months despite him insulting Mexican immigrants and Muslims and clashing with Republican establishment figures like Senator John McCain.

Trump leads polls in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina


Donald Trump holds a strong lead over the Republican field in three states while the race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders continues to remain close, according to three new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/ Marist polls out Thursday.
In Iowa, Trump has the support of 32 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz follows seven points behind with 25 percent and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has 18 percent. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has 8 percent and Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has 4 percent. All other candidates have 2 percent.
In the same poll less than three weeks ago, Cruz led Trump, 28 to 24 percent.
On the Democratic side, Iowa remains a tossup: Clinton leads Sanders by 3 percentage points among likely Democratic caucus-goers, 48 percent to 45 percent. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is at 3 percent.
But in New Hampshire, Sanders leads Clinton among likely Democratic primary voters by 19 percentage points — 57 percent to 38 percent. O’Malley had just 2 percent. Last month, the Vermont senator led the former secretary of state by just 4 points, 50 percent to 46 percent.
On the Republican side in New Hampshire, Trump keeps his strong lead (31 percent). The next-closest competitor is Cruz with 12 percent. Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are tied at 11 percent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has 8 percent and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie holds 7 percent, with everyone else below 5 percent.
But there’s good news for Clinton in South Carolina, where she has the support 64 percent of likely Democratic voters while Sanders has just 27 percent.
South Carolina is also a good state for Trump, who has the backing of 36 percent of likely Republican primary voters, Cruz follows him with 20 percent and Rubio has 14 percent. Bush, despite the backing of Sen. Lindsey Graham, has 9 percent and Carson has 8 percent. No other candidate has more than 2 percent.
The Iowa telephone survey was conducted Jan. 24-26. Of the respondents, there were 450 likely Republican caucus-goers and a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. There were 426 likely Democratic caucus goers with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points. The New Hampshire telephone survey of 612 likely Republican primary voters was taken Jan. 17-23, with a margin of error of 4 percentage points. There were 568 likely Democratic primary voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. The South Carolina telephone poll was also conducted Jan. 17-23. There were 718 likely primary voters with a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points; with the subsample of 446 likely Democratic primary voters, there is a margin of error of 4.6 percentage points.

At Trump rally, a rare spotlight on Huckabee and Santorum


Donald Trump invites former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania to the podium at his campaign event Jan. 28 in Des Moines. (Khue Bui for Yahoo News)
DES MOINES, Iowa — They had seen a crowd like this before: a few hundred Iowans, up on their feet, hands in the air and cheering wildly. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, two former winners of the Iowa Republican presidential caucus (in 2012 and 2008, respectively) stood in the warm glow of the stage lights, clearly thrilled at the reception. But their smiles soon turned wistful. The audience wasn’t there for them.
The Republican presidential hopefuls, now political long shots in their second bids for the GOP nomination, stood in the shadow of the man to beat, Donald Trump, who had enlisted his rivals in his counter-programming for the GOP debate Thursday night — a fundraiser for military veterans that was alternately sincere and surreal.
Taking the stage at an auditorium on the campus of Drake University, a few miles from where his Republican rivals were participating in the last debate before Monday’s caucus, Trump told the crowd that Fox News had been “extremely nice” to him that afternoon, calling him and asking up until the last minute if he’d change his mind and come to the debate. But he refused, because, he said, they hadn’t been fair to him.
“You have to stick up for your rights,” Trump said, comparing his feud with Fox News to the tempestuous relationship between the United States and Iran.
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A supporter with an anti-Fox News sticker listens to Donald Trump at a campaign event Jan. 28 in Des Moines. (Khue Bui for Yahoo News)
In the front row sat Huckabee and Santorum, fresh from their appearance in the so-called “undercard” debate, awkward smiles on their faces as Trump rambled through a version of his stump speech. At one point, he suddenly seemed to remember that he’d invited two of his rivals to join him to honor military veterans, and he summoned Huckabee and Santorum to the stage, reminding his audience that they had just come from a debate.
“I heard they did really well, these two. I mean, who the hell knows? I didn’t get to see very much of it,” Trump said. Turning to his rivals, who wore frozen smiles, he said, “I think if they had booed, you probably wouldn’t be here right now. You’d go back and be depressed, right?”
Trump pushed his rivals to speak, and Santorum walked to the microphone first, standing awkwardly to the left of the podium. “Not to be offensive,” the former Pennsylvania senator said, “but I am going to stand a little bit over here so I am not photographed with the Trump sign.”
As the audience laughed, Santorum added, “Um, I am supporting another candidate for president, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together when it comes to helping our veterans.”
When Huckabee spoke, he didn’t bother to hide from the Trump sign. “I figure you’re going to get the photo anyway, so I might as well just stand here,” he said. “I want to say how grateful I am for Donald Trump inviting us here. I think you would have let any of the other candidates come. But for reasons that maybe I don’t understand, they are not here. Maybe because they have a slot at 8 o’clock, but I had nothing to do at 8 o’clock tonight. This worked great for me.”
Behind him, Trump laughed.
In the crowd, nobody seemed to be sad about missing the last GOP debate here.
“It didn’t bother me a bit. I’ve watched the debates. After a couple of them,     there’s not a whole lot more they can ask,“ said Suellen Seaba, who came to the Trump event with her husband, a Vietnam veteran, and their friend Wesley Jacoby, a 90-year-old who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. "I thought this was a very good alternative.”

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