Miami Trainwreck

A Preview of the Third GOP Primary Debate

No, I’m not referring to the Brightline death train.

I’ve talked — and talked, and talked, and talked about the pointlessness of the GOP debates this election cycle and their utter lack of substance or meaning. The desperate, panting desire to somehow slap the paddles on the chest of the mouldering corpse of the GOP and watch some candidate rise to smite Donald Trump is a fantasy enjoyed by the media, a handful of true-believer campaign staffers (not consultants; they know better), and the handful of gentry Republicans who want to take their country club to back from the Visigoths.

For all that, here’s a cheat sheet on what the candidates have on the line this week.

Nikki

All eyes will be on Nikki Haley. Her campaign team has been playing the inside game diligently for the last few weeks, and it shows. The glowing articles, the increasingly confident tone, and her credible performance in the previous debates raise the stakes in Miami for her. Rumor is she’ll try for more distance from Trump in a bid to land more of the major donors who ran from DeSantis when it became clear his campaign is a plague ship stuck at the lazaretto.

From a general election perspective, I’d love for the GOP primary to end with Trump viciously attacking a woman candidate. It would be so on-brand for Trump and an excellent illustration to Bannon Line voters.

Bootsy

Speaking of Ron DeSantis, the once-golden child of the GOP elite class, the money bros, and many GOP voters, his clammy, creepy, pissy performance in the last debates would have led most candidates to consider an alternate career, perhaps as goat-herd or blacksmith. Most stories about DeSantis in the previous two weeks have been about his lifted boots to give Wee Ronnie a little more stature. (See Little Boots for more.) It’s been a singular public relations and political disaster.

He’s still in zombie second place in some states, but the predicate for Bootsy is fading fast. As noted before, he could still goose out a win in Iowa, just like Presidents Cruz, Huckabee, and Santorum.

His once-deep well of cash is being incinerated. He’s polling 35 points behind Trump in — wait for it — Florida. He’s losing support in his (and my) home state and facing increasingly skeptical legislative endorsements, where his strongest supporters are defecting to Trump. His fav-unfav is 16 points underwater.

By the time he gets to the Florida Primary on March 19th — where Trump leads him currently by XX, Trump will have already likely won the California primaries (Trump is +34% in CA, see page 19 of the CA Data Viewpoint poll) and Texas primaries. *Trump is +41 in TX, per the latest YouGov survey.)…as well as sweeping every other Super Tuesday state. This ends badly.

Chris Christie

Even though the debate is in Miami, Chris Christie’s novelty act gets another chance to work New Hampshire voters because he’s gambling his entire campaign on winning the Granite State and then…what, exactly? Look, Chris…you won the Green Room Primary, and you’ll be on TV again soon enough. Otherwise, enjoy this last night under the lights.

The Rest

The less said about Vivek Ramascammy, the better. We won’t see much more of him after this debate, but we likely will see him joining the Fox News media ecosystem as their latest stunt casting: the Cool Edgy Ethnic Techbro Friend(tm). Is Tim Scott even real? As of this writing, it’s still uncertain whether he’ll make the stage.

The reason for this preview of the Miami debate is simple: the event is meaningless, except for the Horserace Industrial Complex (credit for that phrase goes to the great Tim Miller). Breathless media coverage of a group of people who cringe at the mention of Trump’s name can’t be cast as bold new leaders in American politics.

Nothing moved the numbers for any of these unfortunate creatures. They’re all campaigning on the Please Jesus Take Him From This Earth, And I Promise to Be Good ticket, hoping for the miracle externality when no such providential moment is coming.

It’s why I endorsed Joe Biden yesterday; all the GOP primary spritzing and scrapping is not moving the needle. It’s Biden vs. Trump.

I have some other business to do in Miami this week (Lincoln Project fundraising, for one, including some ex-GOP donors now very disaffected with both Trump and DeSantis), so I’ll be in Miami for this clownshow debate.

At least I’ll get some good Cuban food out of it.

Source: 538.com