canyonwalker | Five Go Forth: Third GOP Debate

Wednesday night was the third Republican presidential debate. Yes, here were are just under a year away from Election Day 2024, and already we're on our third debate for candidates contending for the GOP nomination. ...Except they're not so much competing for the nomination as who'll be in second place— distant second place.

There were five candidates on the stage Wednesday night: Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, North Carolina senaor Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

The field that qualified for the event has narrowed a bit since the earlier debates. Former Arkansas gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota gov. Doug Burgum did not make the cut based on polling numbers and fundraising requirements. (Burgum notoriously bought his way into meeing the fundraising requirements— then complained in a press release two days before the event that "elites" and "insiders" were trying to keep him out.) Former vice president Mike Pence suspended his campaign two weeks ago, on Oct. 28. He said he wasn't finding enough traction in polls.

The Elephant Not In The Room

Of course, none of the five on stage are really finding much traction in the polls. At best they're polling barely over 10% among likely voters in the Republican primary. Former president and de facto party leader Donald Trump dominates the field with nearly 60% support.

What would you expect a crowd of future also-rans to do in a situation like this? Reason and history both suggest more should drop out, as the chances of any of them winning are remote at this point; and those who remain should focus on explaining to voters how they're meaningfully different than the leader. Instead they spent most of their time sniping at each other. This debate group is like the kids' table at Thanksgiving, and instead of making the case for why any of them should sit with the grownups, they... had a food fight among themselves.

"A Party of Losers"

The ironic best line of the night may have come from Ramaswamy when he thundered, "We've become a party of losers." Indeed he's right... but not in the way he thinks. He referenced the party's poor showing the day before, when repoductive rights won in Ohio, Democrats took both houses of the state legislature in Virginia, and a Democratic governor won reelection in Kentucky. Any sensible analysis of Tuesday's outcome concludes that far right positions, especially being far to the right of the mainstream on outlawing abortion, are losers. Instead Ramaswamy's argument was that his party is not extreme enough. He blamed all the election losses on the GOP not doing enough to combat media hoaxes. Apparently, to him, everything that Republican politicians seem to have done wrong since 2016 didn't actually happen but is a mass delusion rigged by a vast and tight conspiracy of hostile news media.