Who Won the ABC Saint Anselm College Republican Debate

Chaos reigned in the last debate before the New Hampshire primary even before the first question was asked when ABC’s “backstage” camera captured a pile-up of presidential candidates caused by Ben Carson not hearing his name announced over the applause.

The muddled entrance foreshadowed what would be a topsy-turvy turn of events. Going into Saturday night, the political and media intelligentsia was dead certain of a few facts about the GOP primary field. Marco Rubio is a great debater. Jeb Bush is a waffling mess. Donald Trump can say whatever he wants and still get cheered. And, most of all, Republican voters don’t like governors anymore. By the end of the night, every one of those articles of faith would be turned on its head.

Without further ado, here are your winners and losers from Goffstown, New Hampshire, from the bottom to the top of the heap:

7. Retired neurosurgeon BEN CARSON

DebateWatch still doesn’t know why Dr. Carson hasn’t bowed out of the Republican primary yet. After Iowa, his campaign looks more quixotic than any other candidate on the debate stage, and nothing in Carson’s performance suggested a strategic move toward competitiveness in upcoming primaries or caucuses.

After several debates in which no one bothered to ask America’s most famous brain doctor any questions about healthcare, Carson finally got his chance to expound on his plan for “health empowerment accounts.” Unfortunately, his foreign policy platform still sounds like it was written after watching the trailer for Michael Bay’s 13 Hours.  Carson effectively sleepwalked through the evening, failing even to muster anything resembling indignation at the shady Cruz voicemails that might have cost him support in the Iowa caucuses. Move along, nothing to see here.

6. Real estate mogul DONALD TRUMP

Some candidates play chess while others play checkers. Donald Trump plays 52 pick-up. The Republican front-runner struggles to assemble even the most basic answers to the most facile questions. Asked to justify himself as a conservative, Trump resorted to decomposing the word to its roots like an eighth-grader stalling for time at a spelling bee, allowing Marco Rubio to follow up and appear even more eloquent by contrast.

Trump avoids last place in this ranking out of sheer luck. The ABC News moderators, in an act of journalistic malpractice, never once asked him to justify his claims of mass fraud by Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucuses, allowing Trump himself to bring it up in his closing statement without the risk of a rebuttal. In true tinfoil-hat tradition, Trump also lambasted the debate audience for being donors and special interests to a chorus of boos. He may well win New Hampshire, but Trump is behaving like a candidate in free fall.

5. Florida senator MARCO RUBIO

DebateWatch is eating its words after publishing a post arguing against the idea that Senator Rubio is too scripted. While we stand by the principle that Rubio’s disciplined messaging is generally an asset, this debate demonstrated its limits when Goffstown turned into Gaffestown.

Skewered by Chris Christie for his reliance on canned soundbites, the Sunshine State senator responded by repeating a canned soundbite. Twice. For a total of three times. To make matters worse, Rubio passed up on a chance to pound Christie’s not-so-conservative gubernatorial record in order to commit to the rote quip. On top of it all, the hackneyed line – casting President Obama as nefarious rather than incompetent – wasn’t even a particularly good one to which to over-commit. Later, Rubio made rudimentary mistakes as he struggled to talk his way out of his connection to the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill. Retreating, Rubio played cautious defense for the rest of the night rather than attempt to even the score. The damage, however, has been done: expect to see a lot of awkward Rubio moments permeating the airwaves from now until New Hampshire votes.

4. Ohio governor JOHN KASICH

Governor Kasich in what may be his last debate sounded a lot like Governor Kasich in his first debate: chill, reasonable, and sincere. That’s not to say that Kasich’s performances have been consistent over that time period, though – DebateWatch remembers well the dark days of Hulk-Kasich when he let his temper get the best of him and proved that voters wouldn’t like him when he was angry.

Riding high on a good New Hampshire ground game, the Buckeye State governor put his best foot forward in Goffstown, sticking to his positive message of compassionate conservatism and refraining from attacking his foes directly. Kasich is still wonky, and sometimes gets bogged down in policy specs, but his avuncular charm was superbly conveyed regardless. If he fails to drum up support in Tuesday’s primary, it will not be due to a marketing failure.

3. Texas senator TED CRUZ

The most dangerous territory for Senator Cruz came at, as he would say, the outset. Pressed by the moderators for allegedly employing dirty tricks to convince Carson caucus-goers in Iowa to defect, Cruz delivered a long yet well-rehearsed explanation of what precisely happened, apologizing to Carson directly while also denying his personal involvement. It obviously wasn’t the way he wanted to start things off, but he made lemonade out of lemons and defused the situation.

After dodging that bullet, the Lone Star State senator marched on without much incident and notched another solid, if not particularly memorable, debate performance. His emotional recounting of his half-sister’s overdose and death offered a new side of Cruz to a state in the throes of a heroin epidemic. In his closing statement, Cruz drew applause for reminding the audience of his anti-establishment credentials, having taken on the “establishment” – Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and the ethanol lobby – and won just four days ago. Cruz is outside his natural habitat in New Hampshire, but he can still finish respectably on Tuesday.

2. New Jersey governor CHRIS CHRISTIE

Governor Christie has been spoiling for a fight with “establishment lane” Marco Rubio since calling the senator out for being “the boy in the bubble,” sticking to speeches and avoiding tough questions. Christie brought his A-game to Goffstown, taking Rubio on almost entirely by his stony lonesome (while Bush, Cruz, and Kasich mostly sat on the sidelines). As we’ve mentioned before, Christie made Rubio out to be the fool and himself to be the sage.

The Garden State governor’s debate performance was practically flawless and completely framed around his leadership qualities. Beyond just being an excellent argument for his own candidacy, Christie managed to legitimize governors as a whole in a race that has so far pushed them to the wayside in favor of first-term senators and political neophytes. Christie has an uphill battle ahead of him, but he could not have asked for a better debate performance in these crucial final days.

1. Former Florida governor JEB BUSH

Welcome back to the top, John Ellis.

It’s taken a long time for Governor Bush to get his debate mojo – probably too long for it to propel him to the nomination. Nevertheless, in Goffstown we saw Bush at his polemical peak, smartly picking his battles with Donald Trump and hammering him mercilessly over eminent domain. At long last, an audience cheered Bush and jeered Trump – just the way Bush always hoped they would.

The likelihood of the ex-governor of the Sunshine State surviving New Hampshire’s primary – in which he is currently running fifth – are slim. But perhaps, after a long and bitter primary campaign of expensive attrition warfare and super PAC savagery, the Bush dynasty will be able to exit the political scene with a few shreds of dignity left. Offered several chances to attack Rubio by the moderators, Bush punted and waxed poetic about his own gubernatorial record instead. Whether he did it out of noble or strategic considerations, Rubio (and a primary-weary GOP) can be grateful that Bush II.V finally pulled a few punches. The debate was better for it. DebateWatch declares Jeb Bush the winner of the ABC Saint Anselm College Republican Debate.

What to Watch for at the ABC Saint Anselm College Republican Debate

WHERE: Saint Anselm College, Goffstown, New Hampshire
WHEN: Saturday, February 6, 8:00 PM EST
TV: ABC

It’s been six months and a day since 11 Republican presidential candidates took the stage at Saint Anselm College for the Voters First Presidential Forum (and three more telecommuted from Washington D.C.). Take a look at the class picture from that night and think about how bloody the GOP tontine has been since August. More than half the candidates on that stage have bowed out of the race; two or three more will likely be gone in less than a week. Not a single one of those present would break into double digits in the Iowa caucuses.

Now the elephant walk has wound its way back to Goffstown. Seven survivors (Carly Fiorina and Jim Gilmore failed to qualify) will be quizzed by ABC’s David Muir and Martha Raddatz, who will be spelled by Josh McElveen of WMUR and Mary Katharine Ham (who shares a Montgomery birthplace with this DebateWatcher) of conservative outlets Hot Air and Townhall. IJReview will cosponsor the showdown.

The wins and wounds of the Hawkeye State will be fresh in everyone’s mind when the first and only ABC GOP debate kicks off on Saturday night. Here are the top three storylines DebateWatch will be watching:

1. #Trumpertantrum

For months, the media (DebateWatch included) has speculated about how a candidate who talks more about winning than anyone short of you-know-who would handle losing. After Donald Trump’s second-place finish in Iowa, we now have an answer: not well.

Appearing cowed and uncharacteristically humble, Trump’s three-minute caucus night speech fooled some for a moment into thinking that the real estate mogul would accept his silver medal graciously. Such illusions vanished when, two days after his loss, Trump took to Twitter to accuse Ted Cruz of stealing the Iowa caucuses and demand either the Texas senator’s abdication of the results or a complete re-vote. Cruz’s smarmy rejoinder: coining the word “Trumpertantrum” to characterize the accusation.

At press time, Trump still appears to have a very good chance of winning New Hampshire. His rivals remain bitterly divided, his lead in state polls going into next Tuesday’s vote is larger than the one that seemingly evaporated in Iowa, and a primary – with polls open all day and smaller time commitments from participants – has fewer barriers to entry than a caucus, which will help Trump’s constituency of irregular primary participants get out the vote. However, he will undoubtedly have to answer for his allegations about stolen Iowa caucuses in the debate, and looking like a sore loser is unbecoming of a presidential candidate.

2. Marcomentum

Ted Cruz may have won Iowa (and given a victory speech ten times as long as Trump’s), but no one has had a better week than Marco Rubio. Buoyed by a surprisingly strong third-place finish that stopped just shy of Trump’s vote total, Rubio left Iowa for New Hampshire on a jubilant note. The icing on the cake came as Republican dropouts Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal – both social conservatives seemingly more compatible with Cruz’s brand of politics – endorsed the Florida senator for president. A Rubio nomination – indeed, a Rubio presidency – suddenly looks considerably more probable.

If, however, there are three horsemen of the Trumpocalypse with the wherewithal to stop Marcomentum in its tracks, their names are John, John, and Chris. Three candidates who have long staked their candidacies on the Granite State – and control pockets of voters Rubio needs in order to succeed – are desperate to derail the heir apparent to the establishment lane that gave the GOP its last two presidential nominees.

Sun Tzu warned never to deny one’s opponents the option of retreat, lest they fight ferociously for their lives. Bush, Christie, and Kasich have no recourse if they are beaten soundly in New Hampshire; two of the three are now coordinating attacks on Rubio through campaign staff back channels. Rubio can expect these three to fight like hell at what will surely be the last debate for at least two of them. That, plus the salvos he will undoubtedly receive from arch-foe Cruz, should keep the GOP’s young gun on his toes.

3. The Odd Man Out

The post-Iowa withdrawals of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum were foregone conclusions long before the caucusers caucused. Rand Paul’s exit, while less predictable, makes sense given the tough Senate reelection campaign ahead of him. But the other shoe DebateWatch expected to drop after disappointing results still hasn’t.

Ben Carson will be the only candidate on the debate stage without even a minimally-plausible path to the nomination. Either Cruz or Trump could amass sufficient delegates with a Shermanesque march through the South; Bush, Christie, Kasich, or Rubio could turn a New Hampshire victory into a blue state push after consolidating the other “establishment” candidates’ support. Meanwhile, Carson is polling last in New Hampshire, fifth in South Carolina, and fourth nationwide, and his already decimated campaign staff is downsizing again. Where does he go from here?

So doomed did Carson seem in the run-up to Iowa that Cruz staffers directed precinct captains to tell caucus-goers that Carson had dropped out even before the Hawkeye State votes were tallied. Perhaps Carson is staying in purely as a point of pride in response to Cruz’s subterfuge. Perhaps the glorified book tour hasn’t profited enough yet. Perhaps the soft-spoken non-politician is the proverbial (and scientifically inaccurate) bumblebee who hopes to fly simply because no one has told him it’s impossible. Whatever the case, Carson’s presence on stage – meaningful or not in the grand scheme of things – may be the biggest enigma at the Saint Anselm College debate.