They're all losers

Recapping last night's GOP debate: They're all losers

SFGATE columnist Drew Magary tells you everything you need to know about the GOP debate

By Drew Magary

You didn’t watch last night’s GOP primary debate, because you’re a smart person. You knew the big names going in, and already had concrete opinions about them. You knew that the biggest name of all — Donald Trump — peaced out on this debate. Trump is so far ahead of the rest of the field that he could just exchange handies with Tucker Carlson for two hours instead and not suffer for it. As a result, his absence from the debate lent it all the import of a bronze medal game. You knew there would be no real “winner.” And you had better shit to do. You were content to take in whatever happened last night via choice Twitter clips, or via recaps from poor journalists who had to watch the thing in full.

Like me. I had to do that last night. I hate this job and now want to quit. But before I turn in my letter of resignation, I made a log of what happened in Milwaukee last night. Here now are my real-time observations.

This first debate, only one of two, is being broadcast exclusively on Fox News. So I have to tune into the Death Star for the first time in many, many years. What I notice immediately is that everyone on this network is OLD now. So, so old. Sean Hannity has aged 20 years in the past three. Brit Hume has more liver spots than an alcoholic’s MRI. Laura Ingraham looks like your grandmother savoring her final tan. For the pregame, Fox also brings in a coterie of wingnut all-stars including Karl Rove, Kellyanne Conway, and Trey Gowdy. All of them look like absolute s—t. It’s like being at the world’s worst high school reunion. It’s not just Fox News’ audience that’s dying off, it’s also the talent. This is encouraging.

But I’m not here for any of these puds. I’m here for the contestants, and I genuinely need to be introduced to some of them. This is especially true of Vivek Ramaswamy, whom I only know from headlines that I rarely bother to finish reading. So I am primed to see all of these guys in the flesh, and to watch them tussle. Here they are, in order of their current poll standings:

-Florida governor and self-appointed child’s genital inspector Ron DeSantis

-Vivek Ramaswamy, aka GOP Andrew Yang

-Former Vice President Mike Pence

-South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott

-Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley

-Former New Jersey Gov. (just ask him) Chris Christie

-Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson

-North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is somehow the better Dakota governor

A woman dressed like a wedding reception table arrangement sings the anthem. DeSantis looks genuinely pained while listening to it. He will look no better over the course of the next two hours. 

Our moderators are Fox studio hosts Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier, the latter of whom looks like Cocaine Bear. Their first question for the panel is, “Hey gang, why has ‘Rich Men North Of Richmond’ resonated with so many Americans?” DeSantis takes that as an immediate cue to start yelling at the camera. Really yelling. Something about lousy paintings. Keep in mind that DeSantis’ people wanted him to show emotion in this debate. Turns out he only possesses one emotion: blind rage. I feel like he’s mad at ME, like I just left grass clippings on his side of the property line. 

This man literally can’t smile, even when he tries. Donald Trump can smile. Sure, Trump only smiles when he sees a cop shooting a migrant baby with a Taser, but it’s a genuine smile all the same. When Ron DeSantis tries to smile, he looks like someone is ripping his fingernails out. Deep down, I believe he is against smiling, seeing it as a sign of weakness. It is impossible for me to believe that any voter outside of Florida likes this man.

Chris Christie goes next, and somehow comes across as the NICE one, all while bragging about cutting pensions in his home state. This is the curve that you have to grade all of these losers on. Sure, they’re all open to screwing over anyone they don’t like, but could you shake their hand without fleeing to the sink immediately afterward to wash off? For Chris Christie, that answer is an unequivocal maybe!

But perhaps Tim Scott can pass this test all the way. He gets his turn at the mic and has all the gravitas of an emergency “First Take” co-host. He also kinda looks like a frog that just got ambushed. I write him down as a maybe as well.

Finally, I get to hear Vivek Ramaswamy speak. This is a mistake. Ramaswamy comes off like a theater kid playing a Republican on Broadway. He also makes sure to point out that he’s a certified young person, and that he’s a businessman who’s sick of the politicians in Washington (what a novel pitch!). In between delivering Sorkin fan fiction monologues about running to things and not from them, he throws in a few choice digs at the rest of the field for being bought and paid for by super PACs, which causes much crosstalk. Again, a novel pitch: “I don’t need donor money, because I’m already rich and want to fuck ALL of you over!”

Nikki Haley, dressed like a throw pillow, immediately gets mad at the GOP, not just the Democrats, for overspending. This gets applause, because every Republican candidate and voter hates overspending, except when they themselves do it.

Pence goes next, and comes off like a general practitioner you can’t stand but is the only one in your area who takes insurance. Pence alludes to Trump but doesn’t name him, which is good because you never know which member of the audience came here tonight intent on assassinating the former VP for daring to uphold basic rules of democracy three years ago. 

Doug Burgum looks like an English teacher who wandered onto the stage by accident. Asa Hutchinson looks like Biden asked to have Ron Paul’s face. All of these candidates attempt to cram as many boilerplate talking points as they can into their time allotment, regardless of the question asked, before the Wrap It Up bell rings. And then they keep going anyway. You knew they would.

The moderators ask the candidates to raise their hands if they believe that humans are responsible for the devastating effects of climate change (they are). DeSantis takes that as his cue to start yelling again, right away. Does he even know he’s mic’d? Does he think he’s at a Seahawks game? He DOES look like a head coach you want fired after the first loss, so I get his mindset. Haley says that climate change is real, but that it’s Asia’s fault. 

Ramaswamy again insists that he isn’t bought and paid for. Christie has had just about enough of this young brown man and quickly puts him down as a rookie (true) who sounds like ChatGPT (also true) and reminds Christie of Obama (true if you are racist). Much nervous laughter and sporadic clapping ensues from the cows populating the arena. Undeterred, Ramaswamy smiles like a weirdo and just yaps over Christie to drown him out. This will be his strategy all night long. Eventually, the Wrap It Up bell just starts going off at random. Baier periodically reminds the field that they have a lot of topics to get to, but none of them give a crap. Time ceases to have any meaning. I wish I were still drinking. 

All of the candidates vow to get tough on China, another novel concept. 

We get to the abortion part of the festivities and the word “life” comes out of everyone’s mouth 1,000 times, which is amusing given how many of these people are nearing the end of their own. Pretty much all of the candidates hew to the new GOP strategy of moving the goal posts by acting like a 16-week abortion ban instead of six-week ban counts as a good faith effort to meet liberals halfway on the issue. Haley asks the audience, “Can’t we all agree to ban late-term abortion?” No. She then insists that a federal abortion ban will never pass the Senate. It sure won’t, lady. I like your defeatism there. Are you sure you’re not Chuck Schumer?

Pence quotes the Bible. Big Bible guy.

Next up is the “crime crisis,” which is totally a real thing that you should be worried about if you need an excuse to disenfranchise Black people. The moderators ask Pence, and I’m paraphrasing here, if all this crime is his fault because the Trump administration enacted — so, so reluctantly — a sensible COVID-19 lockdown policy. A fair question. All the pieces fit. Pence thinks otherwise.

DeSantis uses this topic as a chance to tell the audience that he would go back in time to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci. Much clapping ensues. 

We get to guns and Christie tells the nation that he’d like the Feds to take over the policing of our cities, because you can’t be a Republican unless you believe that every city in America is currently a war zone on par with Basra circa 2005. Somehow Hunter Biden gets mentioned, so I check that off on my bingo card. Why do we have so much pretend crime in America? Well because of vaccines and because Hunter Biden once owned a laptop. Again, all the pieces fit. DeSantis mentions George Soros by name not long after. My bingo card is full, and we’re only halfway done. I might just win a gift card to Olive Garden.

Ramaswamy starts talking again and says nothing of import, but by God he’s the most alive person on this stage by a mile. Unlike most of these bozos, I could easily see him surviving his first term, although that’s almost a turn-off. Burgum says that our cities need to be more like our small towns, because every Republican out there has to treat small towns in America like they came right out of a Richard Scarry book. There’s a farmer! There’s a fireman! There’s Officer Bear, helping Goldbug fix his mini tractor! I’ve been to these towns. They suck. Gimme a totally dead downtown San Francisco over any of those meth-drenched backwaters anyday.  

The moderators finally bring up Trump, asking the field if they’d support him if he won the nomination. Pence and DeSantis take a beat, but eventually raise their hands. Christie raises his hand, but insists it’s only because he wants to cut everyone off and start talking right away about how much Trump sucks. He gets booed, and then says to the audience, “Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth.” That Christie charm is really shining through now. He gets roundly booed some more. 

For his part, Ramaswamy says Trump is the best president of the 21st century. Someone wants a no-show cabinet post.

The moderators ask if Pence did the right thing by certifying the 2020 election results and officially making Joe Biden President-elect. This makes DeSantis angry. Everything makes him angry. His bangs are THIS close to coming down across his face, he’s so angry and brooding. “Is THIS what we’re gonna be focusing on?” DeSantis asks the room. Yeah! Why are we litigating past treason when we should be focusing on FUTURE treason? Jeez aloo!

Baier reminds DeSantis that he is losing in the polls to Trump, and quite badly.

Haley, here to play the centrist, calls Trump the most disliked politician in America and gets booed for it. Burgum insists that China is the real problem here, because China is located far away and is very spooky. Pence reminds everyone that all he did by certifying the election was honor the Constitution, the way he swore to do when taking office. It's a big deal to ask Republicans to honor the Constitution if it says something they don’t like, so Pence is taking a chance here. For me, he’s the only serious politician in the room. Not a GOOD one, but a serious one. I predict he’ll be out of the race by October.

The moderators ask for another show of hands on a new topic and DeSantis just starts yelling again. I think he knows he’s not getting out of Tallahassee, and he dislikes this fact a great deal.

We get to the subject of drugs and I learn that none of these people know how to pronounce the word fentanyl properly. We get to the border crisis and both Scott and Burgum insist we should lay off a bunch of people at the IRS so that we can hire more angry, trigger-happy Border Patrol guards. DeSantis relishes this topic and confirms that yes, he would absolutely give federal agents authorization to gun down migrants at the border. While saying this, he comes as close to genuinely smiling as he will get all evening.

But when we get to the subject of education, that attempted smile disappears and Hulk Ron shows up again to denounce Critical Race Theory (I have now won bingo; free salad and breadsticks await me) and couch his inhumane treatment of LGBTQ+ residents in Florida as an effective weapon in the fight against “gender ideology.” Parents’ rights are then mentioned all across the auditorium, because parents are the perfect meat shield for these people to deny gender-affirming care to a suicidal 15-year-old. 

Burgum demands more innovation in education, and says there hasn’t been any in 50 years. I assume he’s talking exclusively about education within his state, because my children’s curriculum is so advanced that I can barely help them with their homework. Haley says we need more vocational training in our schools, because bringing wood shop class back is the REAL innovation. How else is Jeff Bezos gonna find more people to work for $3 an hour?

We end with a lightning round of questions, where candidates have only 30 seconds to answer. As you might have guessed, they do not honor this rule. More crosstalk ensues. Like a Robert Altman movie, only bad. Ramaswamy thinks citizens under 25 should take a test to qualify for voting. Scott REALLY hates teachers unions. Hutchinson says, “You look at Arkansas, we have to compete with China.” China would RINSE your home state, buddy. Christie gets a question about UFOs and is offended that he got it, insisting that the teachers unions are a much greater danger to us than aliens.

Finally, everyone on stage is asked to give a closing statement of no more than 30 seconds (ha). Pretty much all of them invite the audience members to visit a URL. All of these candidates are — both politically and personally speaking — losers, which is nice to know except when you consider who they’re going to lose this nomination to. 

Pence, serious as ever, closes out the debate by telling the audience, “God is not done with America.” Given the past two hours, I consider that to be true. I also consider it to be ominous.