WASHINGTON, D.C. — Politico reported this week that the campaigns for several of the Republican presidential contenders are planning to meet separately from the Republican National Committee to discuss how they can wrest control over the format and questions of the next debate. The meeting comes as a result of nearly every campaign having multiple complaints about the debate held on CNBC earlier in the week. Many complained that the questions asked by the moderators weren’t substantive enough, however some Republican aides speaking on the condition of anonymity and an Amazon gift card told reporters that the majority of the candidates were most angry that they were asked tough questions at all.
“Sen. Cruz had a great moment up there when he chastised the media for asking questions that required depth of thought,” one staffer for Ted Cruz (R-TX) told the media, “and he showed a trait that every great politician must have — deflection. We all know that plenty of questions of substance were asked, but our guy didn’t really want to answer those kinds of questions.” The Cruz aide said that the entire campaign staff was elated when their boss was able to deftly side-step questions about policy ideology and instead focus on bashing the media.
An aide for Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) told reporters that “there aren’t many bigger slabs of red meat you can toss Republican voters like bashing the liberal media.” The Christie staffer said while his boss didn’t enjoy any bump in the polls from his debate performance, he wasn’t that worried. “Governor Christie is just here for the free plane trips, food, limo rides, and security,” the aide said, “and nothing proves his fiscal responsibility like taking millions of dollars from donors and not giving them any return on their investment.”
“I didn’t come to that debate to be asked tough questions,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) reportedly told people on his team after the debate, adding that he plans to “fill up [his] cabinet with the finest NeoConservative minds the country has to offer” so he “won’t have to do any of the hard thinking.” Rubio said he’ll employ the “Dubya model” of presidential administrations and let “the smarter adults in the room make the hard decisions” while he “plans [his] next trip to Camp David.”
Reportedly, Hewlett Packard ex-CEO Carly Fiorina was livid about the line of questions she and the other candidates got. “Have they not been paying any attention to the last seven years,” Fiorina demanded back in her hotel room according to staffers, “we have been acting like petulant children for a long time. We ignore real world problems like income and wealth inequality, gun violence, and climate change. That should tell everyone right then and there that we are in no way interested in tough questions. That’s why we bang the culture war drum so loudly; it’s far easier to look good to conservatives by bashing immigrants and women who practice their own sexual autonomy than it is to have a real discussion about how to actually lift people out of poverty.”
“I would say these debates have been exactly like slavery,” was reportedly how Dr. Ben Carson described it to his staff. “They force you to answer the questions, they won’t let you get away with giving half-assed answers. If that isn’t literally the exact same thing as slavery, I don’t know what is.”
More on this as it develops.
