BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | How do you begin to make sense of Tuesday night’s CNN Republican presidential debate? Two hours nine candidates…Trump?…Trump!
You go to Steve Kornacki, the MSNBC host and ace political correspondent, that’s what you do.
Kornacki, a proud East Villager, took a break out of his busy schedule on Wednesday to offer his insights on the G.O.P. slugfest to The Villager.
The media has been hyping this debate as Jeb Bush’s chance to take some hard shots at frontrunner Donald Trump, and he did get in a zinger by calling The Donald the “chaos candidate.” But Kornacki said the Bush family scion fell flat.
“There’s just something about the body language,” he said. “If you look at the transcript, the words are there, but watching him try to deliver it… I don’t think it did anything to Trump.”
Meanwhile, Ted Cruz and Trump decided “there was nothing to be gained from going after each other.”
“Cruz, I think, the strategy is just this long, soft takeover of the Trump base — sticking to his message and being nice to Trump,” he said.
As for Marco Rubio, Kornacki said, “Clearly, on immigration, he’s much more exposed on the issue because he was part of that compromise a couple of years ago and then walked away from it. Immigration has been a killer for conservative Republicans.”
On foreign policy, Cruz came across as “less hawkish,” while Chris Christie — though getting dissed by Rand Paul as the “World War III” candidate — was playing to the Republican base, Kornacki said, with his tough talking on shooting down Russian planes in Syrian airspace.
And what about Trump saying he would close down the Internet to keep terrorists from using it?
“I mean, I’m still trying to make sense of what he said there,” Kornacki mused. “He was kind of saying we’ll turn off this part of the Internet, as if there’s some switch. … His base doesn’t really care if it makes sense.”
How about the manically karate-chopping John Kasich?
“He’s probably been the biggest disappointment in these debates,” Kornacki reflected. “He seems a little scattershot, doesn’t time his interjections well. He’s the governor of Ohio — it seems like he’s running for governor of Ohio.”
Rubio, in Kornacki’s view, “is the most polished candidate by Republican 2015 standards.”
“Rubio would have the best chance at beating Hillary,” he offered, a view that Republican insiders support. “He would do well in debates and at pulling in a broader base. I would expect the Republican elite to be getting behind Rubio.”
Yet, that’s not happening.
“Trump has kind of cracked the code of the Republican base that others haven’t figured out,” Kornacki said. “I think what Trump has exposed is there is this big gap between the Republican rank and file and the elite. He does well with Republicans who call themselves Tea Party members, with traditional conservatives…across the board.”
Unlike Bush, Trump might be using vague language, but he does it forcefully, with assertive body language, Kornacki said.
“Trump would have no problem shooting down planes — it’s part of his military swagger,” he said.
Ben Carson won’t be rebounding, in Kornacki’s view.
“I feel like gravity has caught up with Ben Carson,” he noted.
As for whether Hillary Clinton would beat Trump in the general election, he opined, “I would say Hillary would be the favorite. But in this environment, and with Trump having the appeal he has — if he could just get to the Republican nomination, I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying it’s Hillary hands down.”
Among the Democrats, Bernie Sanders hasn’t been gaining, according to polls.
“Hillary had a good performance, with Biden not running, with her Benghazi performance,” Kornacki said. “The Democratic race has basically been frozen.”
Sanders is strong in Iowa and ahead in New Hampshire, but it doesn’t look good after that, the newsman said.
“The minute you get beyond New Hampshire, she has a huge, huge advantage with nonwhite voters. She is up 50 points in South Carolina. Get past New Hampshire, and you get to bigger states — she’s steamrolling him.”
