Debate performance puts spark into Fiorina’s GOP campaign

His startling declaration left his onstage rivals scrambling to compete for attention the rest of the night.

A Santorum campaign spokesman said Friday that candidates who appeared in the earlier debate benefitted from staying out of fights with bombastic frontrunner Donald Trump.

“I think her chances there are good“, Michelson said.

That should not have come as a surprise, given his many statements of independence in the past, but it had a different ring to it on this stage on this night.

And, of course, 2008 was Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama, as binary as any cycle in our time.

“Governor Walker needs to present himself as a serious alternative to whatever is driving 20 percent of the Republican electorate in the direction of Donald Trump“, Knutson said.

Biggest applause line: “In order to win, we have to have a nominee that throws every punch – who will not pull her punches”.

Fiorina painted herself as an outsider prepared to take on the status quo and delivered some of the night’s most pointed barbs against Trump, Bush and Clinton.

“The great majority of people coming here have no other option”, Bush said.

“Going from secretary to CEO is a very creatable story that makes you think this, too, is the ‘American Dream, ‘” Conway said. The only woman in the field was steely, well prepared and unafraid to take on Trump.

Fiorina ranked 14th in the national polls Fox News used to select participants in Thursday’s first GOP presidential debate of the campaign.

John Kasich: How are you going to talk to the people of Ohio? He said that while he favored traditional marriage, he had recently attended a same-sex wedding and would support his children if they were gay.

Most of the candidates on stage avoided engaging directly with Trump in the debate’s early moments. The problem, however, was that a moderate never could have won the Republican primary.

She came on stage to a standing ovation, and earned several more over the course of her speech and the question-and-answer period that followed, especially when she attacked Hillary Clinton.

Federal prosecutors this week unsealed charges against Jesse Benton and two others who worked for Rand Paul’s father during then-Rep.

For the most part, he said all that stuff without screwing anything up. Trump is a bully who makes the former leading Republican bully, Chris Christie, seem cherubic by comparison.

“But unless you live in Iowa or New Hampshire, you have no way of knowing that”, Schnur said.

Fiorina wasted no time on Friday condemning Trump’s remarks.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee went further, demanding that Social Security and Medicare be funded by a consumption tax.

“Really awesome that so many people are running at this time”.

Here are five takeaways from Thursday’s pre-debate debate.

Dan Schnur, a former GOP political strategist who now directs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, said the debates are high-stakes right now because they are the best opportunities for candidates to earn media coverage while Trump dominates the headlines.

Former Gov. Rick Perry announces his intentions to run for president in 2016 on June 4, 2015, at the Addison Airport. “What are the principles by which he would govern?” she asked.

Sen. Marco Rubio, the youngest candidate in the field, made his usual points about understanding and representing the future.

“They all reflected our values, hopes, and interests, but I particularly felt Carly Fiorina did the best”, Nadine Klimzak told msnbc.

Thursday’s debate was the first of six party-sanctioned forums scheduled before primary voting begins in February.