After the New Hampshire Primary on February 9th, 2016, Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina decided to drop out of the presidential race. Chris Christie finished the primary in 6th place, earning 7.4% of the votes, while Carly Fiorina finished the primary in 7th place, earning 4.1% of the votes.
Many claim that the reason they dropped out at this time is because both Chris and Carly do not have enough votes to attend the CBS Republican debate. In order to qualify, candidates must place in the top five in national and South Carolina averages by Friday and have received "a minimum of 3% in Iowa, New Hampshire or polls in South Carolina or nationwide" (Joyella). The 3% threshold is to ensure that those in the top five still have a reasonable amount of support.
After dropping out of the debate, Carly made a final statement to address the fact that Hillary is now the only women still running for president, "To young girls and women across the country, I say: do not let others define you. Do not listen to anyone who says you have to vote for a certain way or for a certain candidate because you're a woman."
What do you think about Carly's last few statements? Does she speak with good intentions? Is she just bitter about the low support from Iowa and New Hampshire?
Even though Chris lost the election, do you think he made an impact on the other candidates and the public?
Do you think CBS should have hosted an underdog debate? Why or why not?
Sources:
http://graphics.latimes.com/election-2016-new-hampshire-results/
http://deadline.com/2016/02/carly-fiorina-quits-chris-christie-likely-next-gop-debate-cbs-1201700103/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/09/politics/new-hampshire-primary-highlights/
http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/after-new-hampshire-some-gop-candidates-may-not-qualify-for-cbs-news-debate/284426
4 comments:
I think that it is about time that GOP candidates begin to realize that polling lower than 4h or 5th means that you are not going to win. The GOP started out with a large amount of candidates, and over time, that number has slowly decreased. It is still a lot, and thank goodness the GOP has a winner-take-all system for the primaries (if they didn't, IMAGINE how long it would take to achieve the required votes).
Christie, before leaving, was very successful in attacking first term Senator Marco Rubio for his lack of real leadership experience in addition to his frequent use of "canned speeches". Before Iowa, it can be argued that Rubio was the GOP party's top choice GOP candidate ( in terms of the establishment...the actual party is splintered into various factions). I think that Christie did make an impact, but not enough of one to boost his poll numbers. At least, for the time being, he dragged Rubio down with him. As the current governor of New Jersey, the 53 year old Christie may make another run for the presidency later on, who knows?
In terms of Fiorina and her comments, I think she just doesn't like Clinton. In the GOP camp, disliking Clinton seems to be popular. Clinton has throughout the campaign made it clear that she is indeed a woman, and that would be a first (and overdue, if I may cast my own opinion here) time that a woman is elected into the executive branch. I think all Fiorina was trying to do was make it clear that people (women, especially) should not vote for Clinton solely because of her gender because Clinton won't represent their interests any better than any other candidate. I think it was a perfectly fair, politically correct comment to make....at least compared to some other comments we have heard during this election season. Fiorina, like everyone, is entitled to her own opinion, and she seemed to keep this one, at least based on the article, more political rather than strictly personal...again, unlike some other colorful comments that have arisen throughout this election season.
Good article
I agree with Nick that Fiorina was trying to dissuade more moderate Republican women from voting for Clinton because she is a woman. However, given that I think that Fiorina was hoping to get a strong backing from Republican women because she was the only female GOP candidate, this statement is perhaps a bit hypocritical. But, in terms of supporting the GOP, I think that Fiorina's statements were politically smart because the GOP would rather that moderate women support a Republican instead of Democratic Hillary Clinton. Now that Fiorina is no longer in the race, she has to show her support for her party no matter the candidate they select for the general election.
In terms of the CBS debate, I do not think that they should hold an "underdog debate." When Fox news had their underdog debate when the primary race just started, it got dubbed the "kiddie table" and the format and the candidates that participated were mocked. I think that a underdog debate at this stage of the primaries would only hurt lower polling candidates because it would highlight the fact that they are behind in the polls.
The purpose of holding Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary was to level set the expectations, both from the voting public and the candidates from both parties, of how the rest of the campaign will progress and shape in the coming months. Both events over the years have served as a barometer of the performance of the candidates in the rest of the states. Fiorina and Cristie dropping out of the race simply can be viewed as the "admittance" of the long road ahead and the temperature of the voting public regarding their positions in the race. Their dropping out of the race also signifies a unity of some sort for the rest of the voting public. I.e., to unify behind smaller number of candidates that they should be championing for the party representation. Thus, I do not believe that Fiorina statement was intended to dissuade women voters from crossing the line and vote Hillary because she's the lone running woman candidate. It is to emphasis her support for the remaining republican candidates whose views she share with. Unfortunately I do not recall a specific statement from Fiorina supporting which remaining Republican candidate. Perhaps that would come in the coming days.
I also do not believe in "underdog" debate. We need to trim down the candidates to reasonable pool and the "underdog" candidates who have been beaten should throw their support, and unite the voting public towards leading, remaining candidates. They don't need to debate on why the lost. They should concentrate on galvanizing support, campaigning even for the strong candidates.
I like Carly's last few statements in a way. I liked it because she makes a good (yet obvious) point about voting for a candidate because of their character/policy and not their sex. She made it sound weirdly anti-Hillary which shouldn't be the point of her comment. I don't think she was bitter about getting such insignificant support because that should literally have been expected. She knew she wasn't going to win, and she should be happy with her single digit support that she did manage to get. And to be honest, I don't think Chris Christie made much of an impact on any other candidates or the voters, besides his girly name. Most people - who are not politically motivated or active probably have heard Chris Christie's name come up but don't think thrice about it. An underdog debate would have been interesting, but that's pretty much it. It likely wouldn't have swung many votes but I would of listened to the sound bites.
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