Fox Opens Upcoming Debate to All GOP Candidates

But I’ll tell you what I’d like to see. Supporters of candidates near the cutoff have been buying ad time on the network to reportedly increase their likelihood of qualifying for the debate. Then Donald Trump came along – and The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart could not be happier about it. As one member of a Bloomberg focus group recently put it: “He’s just tough, we need someone tough”.

That would be a shame, because Perry gave arguably the most memorable debate performance of the 2012 campaign, though not in a good way. Every night they go out and debate.

At present the last two podiums would be claimed by John Kasich, the moderate and highly-experienced Ohio governor, and Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who was a front-runner before being wracked by political scandal.

Mind you, Perry is at 2.2 percent in the polls, on average, while Kasich is at 3.2 percent.

So for the candidates on the bubble, life must be fraught.

“We don’t know what methodology they’re going to use”. Are you ready for your close-up, Mr. Trump? Eventually the staffer’s soul will starve while wandering the verbal wasteland that is Donald Trump and the Republic will collapse under the heavy weight of its own stupidity. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is next at 13% while Bush follows at 10%.

“They love him and they hate him“, Tim Malloy, assistant director of the poll, said in a released statement concerning Trump.

A gaffe that might have ended a normal campaign – derisively questioning the war record of Sen. The fact that he supports universal health care, when opposing any such thing is a Republican article of faith, seems a minor detail far outweighed by the loud and irrepressible Trumpness of his being.

Donald Trump is not only the party’s Id, but he is also now the Republican Party’s most identifiable leader. Trump knows how to filibuster and won’t hesitate to turn an inconvenient question back on the questioner. But who? And where will they be located on the stage? And perhaps the candidate for that would be Rick Perry, who took him on the most strongly after Trump’s remarks about Sen.

Journalists, politicians, government are all on edge not knowing who Trump will target next. Will Bush break into Spanish? Will retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson again compare the Affordable Care Act to slavery? They saw Bachmann strenuously arguing against childhood vaccination programs and the entire field refusing to raise taxes even if paired with a plan to cut spending by 10 times as much. Ted Cruz with 5 percent.