Republican presidential candidates took several direct swings at each other, and even more at the media, in Wednesday night’s debate. Many of the barbs needed little translation but some were more subtle. All of them had meaning.
Here’s CNN’s decoding of four key lines in the third GOP presidential debate:
Ted Cruz: “The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media.”
Decoded: Here’s an attack all Republicans can love.
One thing the entire field agreed on Wednesday night was that the moderators represented just about everything wrong with the mainstream media in the United States.
Cruz’s decision to attack the press, rather than soon-to-be-House Speaker Paul Ryan — per the moderator’s set-up — offered insight into his thinking: Happy to wage intra-party battles while on Capitol Hill, Cruz saw more upside in a line that nearly all conservatives agree on.
“Nobody watching at home believes any of the moderators have any intention of voting in a Republican primary,” Cruz said.
He was far from alone. Rubio said that the media is a massive pro-Democratic super PAC. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee refused to attack Trump. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie asked why the debate was steered to talking about fantasy football rather than the litany of substantive issues facing the country. And afterwards, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus blasted CNBC for how it handled the debate.
Marco Rubio: “Someone convinced you that attacking me is going to help you.”
Decoded: Jeb Bush is desperate, flailing and out of control of his own campaign.
The 44-year-old Rubio is ascendant, watching his stock grow in the polls while the 62-year-old Bush struggles to escape single digits, despite much better funding.
The two Floridians — Bush, the former governor who counted Rubio, then the state House speaker, as an understudy — eventually had to clash: Their donor bases and core supporters overlap too much.
And Rubio set a trap, Bush walked into it.
Bush, who is often uncomfortable on the attack, went for an opening as CNBC’s moderators pressed Rubio on his missed votes in the Senate, during his presidential campaign.
“Marco,” Bush said, “when you signed up for this, this is a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work.”
That’s when Rubio — who seemed to anticipate Bush’s attack — responded with his withering rebuttal.
If Rubio ultimately becomes the GOP establishment’s top choice, this could prove to be the crucial moment.
Bush, meanwhile, is finding the debate stage to be among his campaign’s biggest challenges. His discomfort with the setting led him to miss another key opportunity, as moderators hushed his efforts to attack Donald Trump and Ben Carson over tax plans that Ohio Gov. John Kasich quickly called a “fantasy.”
John Kasich: “This stuff is fantasy. Just like getting rid of Medicare and Medicaid. Come on, that’s just not — you scare senior citizens with that. It’s not responsible.”
Decoded: In Kasich’s view, the Republican electorate has gone nuts allowing Carson and Trump to become its front-runners.
The Ohio governor’s long experience — he chaired the House Budget Committee and shepherded a Midwestern swing state into a the budgetary black — might be the stuff presidential resumes are made of.
But he’s struggled to get any traction, polling in the low single digits as political newcomers — Trump, Carson and Carly Fiorina — seize more than 50% of the national GOP electorate’s support.
Kasich was looking to inject a moment of sobriety. He did it — drawing a stiff rebuke from Trump for his troubles.
More important, though, is that he took the opportunity away from Bush. Moderators had hushed the former Florida governor just minutes before Kasich talked over their objections and got in his shots. It was a win for Kasich in his effort to attract moderate and establishment Republicans who might instead back Bush.
Ben Carson, as the crowd drowned a moderator’s question about his ties to a questionable nutritional supplement business in boos: “See? They know.”
Decoded: Conservative voters believe I’m a good guy — and nothing reporters or opponents say is changing that.
Carson’s favorability ratings are sky-high and his unfavorability ratings often don’t escape single digits. The retired neurosurgeon’s contradictions on abortion, debt and more and bombastic comparisons such as likening gun control to Nazi Germany haven’t changed the fact that Republican voters flat-out like him.
He was pressed about his ties to Mannatech, a nutritional supplement-maker that claimed it could cure autism and cancer and paid $7 million to settle a deceptive marketing lawsuit in Texas. Moderators noted that Carson appeared on the homepage of the company’s website and asked whether that partnership spoke to his judgment.
Carson said he appeared on the company’s homepage without his permission, and then begin to assert that he didn’t know anything about it.
Carson’s mild-mannered tone and unwillingness to attack his opponents have led to unremarkable debate performances and interviews. But those qualities have also solidified Republicans’ belief that Carson is a good guy and have him up in the polls.