Third GOP Debate

I watched the third GOP debate. Meh.

Let’s have some fun taking down Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz is wrong about inflation. It’s easy to rip apart Ted Cruz’s tax plan as unsound. And his best moment of the Republican debate was also completely wrong:

Cruz’s attack on the moderators was smart politics — but it was almost precisely backwards. The questions in the CNBC debate, though relentlessly tough, were easily the most substantive of the debates so far. And the problem for Republicans is that substantive questions about their policy proposals end up sounding like hostile attacks — but that’s because the policy proposals are ridiculous, not because the questions are actually unfair.

The Republican primary has thus far been a festival of outlandish policy. The candidates seem to be competing to craft the tax plan that gives the largest tax cut to the rich while blowing the biggest hole in the deficit (a competition that, as of tonight, Ted Cruz appears to be winning). And the problem is when you ask about those plans, simply stating the facts of the policies sounds like you’re leveling a devastating attack.

The article (and others) then goes through specifics. I think Kasich sounds the most reasonable, but no Republican is listening to him. It looks like everyone is saying it’s going to be Marco Rubio vs. Ted Cruz.

Catherine Rampell argues, The Republicans are right. We in the media do suck. “We in the media suck because we have rewarded their rampant dishonesty and buffoonery with nonstop news coverage. Which, of course, has encouraged more dishonesty and buffoonery.”

“In the end, the biggest applause lines were all media insults. They came from Rubio, Ted Cruz and Christie. Guess whom CNBC then crowned the winners of the debate? Rubio, Cruz and Christie.”

Nate Silver argues both sides in Maybe Republicans Really Are In Disarray refering to both the whole party and the state of nomination process.