Fox News Iowa GOP Undercard Debate Post-Mortem

Before joining Trump, Huckabee participated in an hourlong forum, sharing the stage with Santorum and other low-polling Republicans: former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina and ex-Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. Instead they joined the undercard debate where Carly Fiorina bucked the trend of going after front runner Donald Trump, and instead took aim at Hillary Clinton.

Huckabee and Santorum were asked why they plan to attend Donald Trump’s counter-event to benefit veterans.

He said that he would not “throw mud” at any of the candidates, but did briefly chide Donald Trump as he criticized the circus of media coverage surrounding him and challenged Iowa caucus voters. In the latest GOP undercard debate, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum called for us “troops on the ground” in Iraq to combat ISIS.

Fiorina says she’s “upping the ante”, suggesting she would join Trump at his Thursday night event at Drake University with a $2 million check in hand for veterans’ causes.

“If I’m trending on Twitter, it’s because of the performance that I did on stage, where I affirmatively made the case that we’re in an global unsafe situation, and I am the only one that has the real credentials to deal with it”, he said.

“The entire lead-up to this debate was talking about whether Donald Trump was going to show up to the next debate”. He says, “Not just saying we’re going to defund Planned Parenthood, but let’s do something bolder”.

While the events were key in allowing the lesser known lawmakers to expose their message to a national audience, support is likely to coalesce around just two or three candidates following the first nominating contests, which also include the New Hampshire and SC primaries.

The biggest concern for Fox should be that this debate was horribly boring.

The Republican presidential frontrunner ditched the Fox News debate – the final one before the Iowa caucuses on Monday – due to a feud with the network over alleged unfair treatment by network host Megyn Kelly. “You didn’t have any gratuitous insults”, Cruz said on Fox News after the conclusion of the debate. “I’m the son of a meatcutter”, Gilmore said.

“With the media outlets we have here, it’s hard not to listen to the radio, watch a TV ad, and the amount of flyers we get in the mailbox to know we have a caucus coming up”, Irons said.

It may be that when the main debate begins, other candidates will have their own cards appear. Both of them were in the undercard debate Thursday night. Rubio trailed in third, with 10.7% support.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum argued at the debate that “undercard” was akin to four-letter word. Santorum quickly expressed deep frustration with the drama surrounding Trump’s decision to skip the debate. “They would never do a thing like that”, said Trump.