8:30! On CNN! Maybe somebody will drop out! Maybe somebody will declare a Unity ticket! Maybe somebody will pepper spray Corey Lewandowski before he can (allegedly) assault another reporter! We just don’t know!
…When did this election cycle become a reality show? Don’t answer that. I’m not entirely sure I want to know when this fresh Hell of mine popped into existence.
You should be able to watch it on CNN here. To be brutally honest about it, I haven’t really decided whether to watch or not. Well, I probably will – but it’s not likely to be really fun.
[UPDATE: Yeah, turned it off.]
[UPDATE: And apparently I’m supposed to turn it back on.]
[LAST UPDATE: Ended watching most of it, as soon as it was made clear to me that people were actually going to smack Donald Trump in the mouth for a change. Refreshing.]
TUNE IN FOR THIS ONE: CBS, 9PM Eastern time. The question of judicial appointments – particularly those of Supreme Court Justices – just became really, really important. Who these candidates would nominate is no longer a theoretical exercise.
Don’t worry if you didn’t watch it: it was on PBS, so neither did anybody else. I only have even a vague idea what happened in it because apparently ten percent of my Twitter timeline apparently secretly hates themselves, and thus forced themselves to watch the blipping thing. This will probably give you a good idea of what they went through:
The Sanders campaign rapid response on Kissinger is straight fire pic.twitter.com/d8CUNsF3nN
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 12, 2016
Kissinger. The Bernie Sanders campaign had its fast-response squad respond to stuff about Henry Kissinger. And to think we thought that the Democrats would have trouble connecting with young voters!
As my buddy Dan McLaughlin first noted and this article confirms, the ABC debate brought in the ratings. 13.2 million viewers (about 700K more than last week’s Fox News debate): and apparently the viewership was steady as she goes throughout. Looks like the GOP is pretty much where all the political excitement is, this year. Which makes sense, given that the Democrats are running candidates that are dull, yet superficial.
Moe Lane
PS: In case you were wondering: the Republican debates in 2016 have blown the 2012 debates out of the water when it comes to viewers. The Democratic ones… have not.
…nah, just kidding. It was a dumpster fire*, and that’s mostly due to the moderators. Except Mary Katharine Ham, who was a rock on the abortion questions, and a general credit to our shared profession. On the other hand, I got to see Jeb Bush testicle-punch Donald Trump over eminent domain (spoiler warning: I HATE Kelo-style eminent domain), so it wasn’t all bad.
Moe Lane
*A potentially profitable dumpster fire for the GOP, but still a dumpster fire.
I’m admittedly half-tempted to have it up in the corner of my screen. Not for the semantic content, of course: there won’t be any. But I figure that after next week’s primary we’re going to be calling Bernie Sanders the ‘front-runner’ for a bit, so Hillary Clinton has some sort of incentive to cut her a Socialist.
Mind you, I don’t expect that to descend to the level of physical violence. If for no other reason than either one trying that sort of nonsense would undoubtedly result in one of them throwing out their back. Or both of them doing that.
:pause:
…Because they’re old, wakka-wakka! Thank you, I’m here all week. Remember to tip your waitress!
…Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum have all dropped out. Which means that the next debate will either be Bush, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Rubio, and Trump, or Bush, Christie, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, and Trump. I’m not sure how they’ll handle the fact that Kasich polls better than Carson in NH while Carson polls better than Kasich nationally. Mind you, there should be only five people on that stage anyway.
Found here. Short version: actually, the absence of Trump didn’t have a horrible effect on the debate ratings. Fox News dropping 2.3 million potential viewers a month from FN debate to FN debate is not drastically different than CNN dropping 1.67 million potential viewers a month from CNN debate to CNN debate.
Found here. Short version: Democrats are so bored with their own primary that they’re watching ours. Not that I’m sympathetic to their woes; the Democrats brought all of this upon themselves.
