Is Fox's GOP Debate Going To Be A Big Ratings Winner? Today's Day In Republican Craziness

Ted Cruz, who doesn't get on the wrong side of Rush Limbaugh, seems to be throwing his lot behind all the craziest Trump and Huckabee remarks. If there's one thing Tailgunner Ted understands, it's how to exploit fear and anxiety-- and superficial faith. The other contenders are trying to figure out if appearing to be more cautious is a better tactic. But wouldn't that caution fly in the face of what their own base wants? After all, the new CNN poll shows that 63% of Republican voters favor mass deportation of millions of Mexican families (over 10 million people)-- generally speaking, the majority of elderly Republicans, uneducated Republicans, Evangelical Republicans and rural Republicans. And these are Trump supporters.

And speaking of polls of Republican voters, a new one came out yesterday from Monmouth University showing Trump with a 2-to-1 edge over his nearest rival, Jeb Bush. Trump takes votes from the whole field of contenders but seems to be hurting Chris Christie, Scott Walker, and Ted Cruz the most. Trump has the support of 24% of GOP primary voters, followed by Jeb! at 12%, John Kasich and Scott Walker tied at 7%, Marco Rubio at 6%, Ben Carson and Rand Paul at 5% each and Chris Christie at 4%.

Trump does especially well with very conservative voters (36%), far outpacing Walker (10%) and Cruz (9%) among this group. Somewhat conservative voters prefer Trump (22%), followed by Carson (10%) and Walker (9%). Moderate to liberal voters choose Bush (22%) and Trump (18%) as their top tier.

Tea Party supporters back Trump (35%), with Walker (13%) a distant second. Non-Tea Party voters split their support between Trump (18%) and Bush (18%), followed by Kasich (8%).

Yesterday Paul Krugman mused in his column about the Trumpmania sweeping the GOP base. He wrote:

What I’m wondering: How, exactly, does the Trump implosion everyone is predicting happen at this point? The punditocracy wrote him off over the McCain comments, and was totally wrong. If base voters haven’t decided that he’s a buffoon yet, what new information will convince them? Also note that mainstream Republican candidates are responding to the Trump surge by amping up their own inflammatory rhetoric, which makes their difference from The Donald ever less apparent. I don’t know about other people, but I am starting to hedge my bets a bit. Maybe he really can get the nomination.

Maybe Trump's backers will get fed up with him if they ever find out he's been lying about his net worth, a net worth he leans on to claim the right to the presidency. A Kasich strategist, John Weaver, got a gut kick in against Trump on Twitter Monday: "Imagine a NASCAR driver mentally preparing for a race knowing one of the drivers will be drunk. That's what prepping for this debate is like." But many think it's Chris Christie-- who isn't even considered a top-tier candidate at this point-- is best suited to successfully take on Trump. His own nasty, even vicious and bullying, approach to campaigning is pretty similar to Trump's-- and so far, Trump has deprived him of that trademark among Iowa and New Hampshire GOP voters.

If Bush underperforms in the Granite State (and other early contests) and/or Christie over-performs, the New Jersey governor could well become a major contender for the nomination, they argue quite reasonably.

Of course, it’s far from guaranteed that Christie would be the ultimate beneficiary of a Bush flop, should one occur.

All of Christie’s supporters acknowledge that, ultimately, a large part of the governor’s appeal is personal. They insist he is impressing voters in the early states with his command of issues and specific proposals, drawing good reviews from attendees who started out skeptical but warmed to the candidate after seeing and hearing him.

But Donald Trump’s success, which relies on a style that is similar to Christie’s, undercuts the New Jersey governor’s uniqueness and may cause establishment voters to look for a candidate who is more diplomatic and polished in his approach.

Recent national polls generally show Christie drawing in the low single digits in the race for his party’s nomination, placing him often in ninth or 10th place. That could be a problem since only the top 10 candidates in polling conducted before the first sanctioned debate, on Aug. 6 in Cleveland, will appear onstage.

Christie dipped a toe in the anti-Trump water this week and seems to be testing whether or not it will work for him.

He was prodded to talk about Trump by Shirley Paulson, 83 of Keene, who asked Christie how he could do a better job at jumpstarting the country's economy since Trump already proved himself a successful businessman.

"I just don't believe that the skills you're talking about that Donald has are transferable," Christie told her.
 "You cannot fire the speaker of the House or the Senate majority leader because you don't get what you want," Christie continued. "What I'm saying is that you have to have some experience in dealing with people in that way ... (and that) there are certain skills that you have to have to be able to operate in a system that's built on compromise."

Paulson didn't seem appeased, so Christie continued.

"In the end, and I've said this to Donald, I think if he became president he would be incredibly frustrated because what he does in the business world could not be replicated in the world of government or in the world of international relations," Christie said.

"For instance, when he says he's going to build a wall across the entire 2,000 mile border between the United States and Mexico, and he's going to make Mexico pay for it," he said, to some laughs from the crowd. "Now, that's a great line, right? Everybody loves that, great we're going to get the wall and we don't have to pay for it."

Paulson interrupted, "He got a lot of attention with it."

"Of course he did," Christie responded, "See, I thought we were talking about about actually governing a country and not getting attention. Listen, if the goal here is to find the person to be president of the United States who can get the most attention, he's going to win hands down. If it is the person who can most effectively govern our nation and deal with the world, I suggest to you that I'm in this race because I think that I'd be better at it than he would."

More NH voters have seen Christie than any other, but he's at just 3%.