Editor’s Note: Todd Graham is director of debate at Southern Illinois University. His teams have won national championships for three years, and he’s been recognized twice as the national debate coach of the year. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.
Story highlights
Todd Graham gives Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio A's for effective attacks against frontrunner Donald Trump
Trump showed a good sense of humor but missed opportunities to advance his cause, Graham says
Debaters should adapt to the latest circumstances, and those are quite simple for the Republicans running for President: Donald Trump’s steamrolling them in this election unless his opponents either (1.) Present a better case to be President while differentiating themselves from Trump or (2.) Attack Trump in a coherent and unified way. Haphazardly attacking Trump is ineffective.
For his part, Trump only needed to keep doing what has worked in the debates. Remind us why we dislike politicians, repeat his general themes, and don’t get trapped having to provide specific policy proposals.
With those considerations in mind, here are my grades for Thursday’s debate:
Ted Cruz: A
Cruz was assertive and his positions more clearly explained. Plus, he went on the offensive against Trump instead of against Marco Rubio. His answers on immigration were his best in any debate, talking about faith, family and patriotism. Both he and Rubio forgot their squabbles and focused on Trump. All great strategic moves.
Plus, Cruz selected a unique theme to attack Trump. He harped on Trump’s donations to Democrats time and time again. Why? Because Cruz positioned himself to be a consistent conservative and this differentiated him from Trump. Sure. But it was craftier than that.
Trump’s theme in the entire election is that he’s an outsider, and we can’t trust politicians. By constantly reminding us that Trump throws money (and influence) at one Democrat after another, Cruz stole a little bit of that “outsider” luster away from Trump. In this debate, Trump seemed like just another player in the business-as-usual political machine.
Marco Rubio: A
Like Cruz, Rubio showed up last night. He was much stronger and more forceful. His answers on immigration, Israel and health care were all better and his presence was way stronger than in previous debates.
Indeed, he pulled his own inner Chris Christie when he forced Trump to repeat himself several times without substance. Trump tried to remind Rubio that he’d repeated himself badly in a debate five weeks ago, but Rubio exclaimed, “I saw you repeat yourself five seconds ago!” It was fascinating to see Rubio do the same thing to Trump that Christie did to him.
At times, due to their similar debating tactics, it almost felt as if Rubio and Cruz were one candidate. They presented a unified attack, two against one, one position at a time. Cruz and Rubio consistently asked Trump for more details. Rarely letting him off the hook, their interrogation was targeted at the “how” question.
The idea was to get the Republican audience thinking along with them: How would you do that Donald? How would you save the budget? How would you fix health care? How would you support Israel? How can you be tough on illegal immigration if you’ve hired undocumented workers yourself? How can we trust you since there’s a fraud suit against Trump University?
As for the interruptions, it was as if both Cruz and Rubio decided to give Trump a taste of his own medicine. While I don’t approve of interruptions in debates, it’s the only thing that’s worked to slow down the playground-quarrelling techniques from Trump. Use his tactics against him.
John Kasich: A-
For Kasich, the grade is based off a different set of criteria. Kasich may be positioning himself to be a vice presidential selection (and Trump recently said he’d want someone with more political experience as his running mate). But if not, he’s still trying to position himself as the level headed, cheerful, nonconfrontational voice of reason. And he pulled it off nicely. He demonstrated his own strengths, continually using examples of his governorship while avoiding criticizing Trump or others.
Donald Trump: C
What I liked most about Trump was his humor. After hearing quotes from Mexican politicians attacking him about paying for the wall, Trump retorted that, “the wall just got 10 feet taller!” I had to laugh. When Hugh Hewitt asked a question referencing his own radio program, Trump responded that, “very few people listen to your radio show … check out the ratings.” And when Cruz said Trump couldn’t beat Clinton, Trump fired back that he hasn’t attacked Clinton but one small time, and after his attack, “they had a rough weekend between Bill and Hillary.”
A sense of humor goes a long way in debates, and even though Trump was constantly challenged, he did his best to maintain his humor, even by telling Rubio and Cruz, “I know you two are embarrassed” (by the polls), “but keep swinging at me …”
Trump’s failure in this debate, which was in large part due to sustained and organized attacks from Rubio and Cruz, was that he forgot his general themes and he missed opportunities to attack Washington politicians. Only in his opening and closing did he remind us strongly that politicians couldn’t get things done. More importantly, both Rubio and Cruz forced Trump, time and time again, to defend (quite unsuccessfully) his policy stances.
Ben Carson: D
I don’t know what Ben Carson wanted to achieve in the debate. He’s not deep on policy specifics, so he’s not debating to force other candidates toward detailed positions. And Carson doesn’t present a unifying thesis, so he’s not a single-issue debater (such as Sanders is with campaign finance/Wall Street greed). This late in the race, trailing badly in all polls, and without a compelling theme, Carson is mostly just spinning his wheels in the debates.
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