They're back. Tonight's CNN event is the last Republican presidential debate of 2015, touted by CNN as "a critical event that will help shape the contest heading into the Iowa caucuses." It will be moderated by Wolf Blitzer, and CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash along with Salem Radio Network talk show host Hugh Hewitt will be the questioners.
Your participants:
- Donald Trump
- Ted Cruz
- Ben Carson
- Marco Rubio
- Jeb! Bush
- Carly Fiorina
- Chris Christie
- John Kasich
- Rand Paul
You can watch on your television at CNN, CNN en Español and CNN International or streaming on CNN's homepage, offered free for anyone who wants to watch. Listen on the radio on the Salem Radio Network.
Let’s be clear: most of the audience of this debate doesn’t know enough about the complicated politics of the Middle East and Russia to assess the actual policies the candidates are pushing. Rather, this whole debate is a posturing contest. Who can sound the toughest and most confident without telling a lie so blatant that the CNN moderators will call them out (pretty damn blatant, in other words)? Who can get the better of their opponents on appearance of toughness and knowledge, not the reality of the same?
So what is Reince Preibus talking about when he talks about a “competent national party”? The delusions. They run deep.
Anyone who had “caliphate” on their drinking game for the first debate is already unconscious, but I’d like to issue a health warning about the drinking game possibilities of Carly Fiorina’s “good friend Bibi Netanyahu.”
Are you afraid yet? CNN wants you to be very afraid.