Battle In Boulder: The Third Republican Debate

This blog was originally published on Forbes as Battle In Boulder: The Third Republican Debate on Thursday, October 29, 2015.

Last night, as I watched the Republican debate from the University of Colorado at Boulder, I followed the Twitter feed crawling across the bottom of the CNBC screen. Most of the tweets expressed predictable opinions sent by interested parties: praise from supporters and criticism from opponents. But one objective comment caught my eye. It came from Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post:

This isn’t a debate. It’s a poetry slam. Without the poetry. #GOPDebate

Ms. Tumulty captured the contentious essence of the evening in which all ten candidates bashed the policies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (understandable), the tough questions from the CNBC moderators (also understandable), and an inordinate amount of time bashing the other candidates on the stage. Of course, this, too, is understandable in a fight for survival, but the intensity of the attacks exceeded the usual circumspection observed for members of one’s own party. In a violation of Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican,” last night’s debate became highly personal.

The tone was set from the outset when CNBC moderator Carl Quintanilla asked each candidate to make an opening statement identifying his or her weakness. Governor John Kasich, who replied first, did not address his own weakness:

My great concern is that we are on the verge, perhaps, of picking someone who cannot do this job. I’ve watched to see people say that we should dismantle Medicare and Medicaid and leave the senior citizens out—out in the—in the cold. I’ve heard them talk about deporting 10 or 11—people here from this country out of this country, splitting families. I’ve heard about tax schemes that don’t add up

This was clearly a slam at the policies of front runner Donald Trump and the debate was off to the combative races.

The battle reached its peak when Governor Jeb Bush turned to Senator Marco Rubio and addressed him by his first name—a departure from the protocol of addressing one another by their titles and last names—and then continued:

… when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work. I mean, literally, the Senatewhat is it, like a French work week? You get, like, three days where you have to show up? You can campaign, or just resign and let someone else take the job.

Mr. Rubio counterattacked to defend himself: “The only reason why you’re doing it now is because we’re running for the same position, and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you…” And then, in a sudden reversal, pivoted to a positive statement:

Here’s the bottom line. My campaign is going to be about the future of America, it’s not going to be about attacking anyone else on this stage. I will continue to have tremendous admiration and respect for Governor Bush. I’m not running against Governor Bush, I’m not running against anyone on this stage. I’m running for president because there is no way we can elect Hillary Clinton to continue the policies of Barack Obama.

The Washington Post took note of the pivot: “Rubio repeatedly took tough questions and turned them to his advantage, finding ways to tell his compelling personal story and steer the conversation toward what the GOP needs to do to beat Hillary Clinton;” and so did the New York Times: “Poised Under Fire … he pivoted from a question about his spotty personal finances to recount his background as the son of a bartender and maid, this time implicitly contrasting himself with Mr. Bush.”

The pivot is a winning technique that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, in his postmortem of the debate, referred to as “Attack from a defensive position” a military tactic defined by Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz who helped defeat Napoleon.

The tactic helped Marco Rubio best Jeb Bush last night. Will it help him go on to best Ben Carson, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton?

This blog was originally published on Forbes as Battle In Boulder: The Third Republican Debate on Thursday, October 29, 2015.