\n<\/p>\n
It was a more substantive debate\u2014at least by the standard of the GOP donnybrooks<\/a> we\u2019ve seen so far this primary cycle. With only two candidates on stage, and neither of them being<\/a> Vivek Ramaswamy<\/strong>, the actual issues\u2014the economy, immigration, foreign policy, climate change\u2014got some real airtime. Was the discussion of those issues mostly horrifying? Yes. Did Nikki Haley<\/strong> and Ron DeSantis<\/strong> take big, clumsy uppercuts at each other? Absolutely. \u201cYou can\u2019t trust what he says,\u201d Haley said of DeSantis at one point. \u201cThat\u2019s just cheap garbage,\u201d DeSantis shot back after another barb. But if you squint a little\u2014and ignore the fact that the dominant frontrunner was once again counterprogramming<\/a> the affair\u2014you might mistake what happened in Des Moines Wednesday night for a normal primary debate.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t, obviously. The CNN debate at Drake University\u2014the last before Monday\u2019s Iowa caucus\u2014was just another a reflection of the GOP\u2019s dangerous, deranged rightward shift over the last decade-plus. And, with Donald Trump<\/strong> once again skipping out in favor of a Fox News town hall just two miles down the road, at the Iowa Events Center, it once again felt like a battle for whatever scraps of the electorate the demagogic former president won\u2019t get.<\/p>\n And what a battle it was.<\/p>\n DeSantis cast Haley as a puppet for donors and corporate overlords\u2014\u201cwarmed-over corporatism,\u201d he labeled her campaign. Haley, meanwhile, cast the Florida governor as a phony\u2014dishonest and merely \u201ccopying\u201d Trump. \u201cDon\u2019t turn this into a drinking game,\u201d she said of his lies in her opening statement, \u201cbecause you will be overserved by the end of the night.\u201d (Of course, if one were to do a shot every time Haley plugged \u201cDeSantisLies.com<\/a>\u201d in response to one of his digs, they\u2019d need their stomach pumped.) He promised to authoritatively \u201cbeat the left.\u201d She pitched herself as the most electable, least chaotic Republican. But for all the jabs they landed on one another over the course of the evening, they mostly just sparred with Trump, lamenting his absence and insisting it was time for him to pass the baton to one of them.<\/p>\n The trouble is: Most Republican voters don\u2019t seem to want him to\u2014at least according to the polls<\/a>. But the hope for Haley and DeSantis is to come out of Iowa, and other early contests, with a strong enough showing to establish themself as the One True Alternative to Trump.<\/p>\n The two distinguished themselves from one another on certain issues\u2014particularly Ukraine, which contrasted DeSantis\u2019s isolationism with Haley\u2019s more traditional international approach. \u201cYou can take the ambassador out of the United Nations, but you can\u2019t take the United Nations out of the ambassador,\u201d DeSantis quipped. They also clashed on abortion\u2014or at least the way their party discusses it. \u201cThese fellas don\u2019t know how to talk about abortion,\u201d Haley said.<\/p>\n But on a host of other issues, Haley and DeSantis\u2014who appear unable to contain their distaste for one another\u2014launched petty attacks while remaining in lockstep on various contemporary GOP preoccupations: condemning \u201cwokeness,\u201d fearmongering about immigrants, denying COVID and climate change, and nodding at deep state conspiracy theories. \u201cThere\u2019s gonna be a new sheriff in town,\u201d DeSantis said, using a question about taxes as a springboard to talk about the so-called \u201cweaponization\u201d of government. \u201cThere\u2019s a reckoning coming,\u201d later added, pivoting from a question about his versus Trump’s view of the constitution to a rant about COVID.<\/p>\n Haley, to her credit, was more firm in expressing disapproval of Trump\u2019s actions following his 2020 election loss, saying he\u2019d have to \u201canswer\u201d for his conduct. But she didn\u2019t come close to the full-throated rebuke of Trump that Chris Christie<\/strong> offered up his campaign, which he suspended<\/a> Wednesday, just hours before his now-former rivals took the stage. \u201cI would rather lose by telling the truth than lie in order to win,\u201d Christie said, warning about the dangers of Trump and lambasting his opponents for their timid approach to the former president. \u201cThis is a fight for the soul of our party and the soul of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n He had even more candid words about his fellow challengers before he took the stage. In comments caught on a hot mic, the former New Jersey governor-turned-Trump critic described DeSantis as \u201cpetrified\u201d and Haley as \u201cnot up to this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s going to get smoked,\u201d he said, \u201cand you and I both know it.\u201d<\/p>\n And while CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper<\/strong> and Dana Bash<\/strong> steered the Wednesday debate toward more substance<\/a> than their previous matchups, neither Haley nor DeSantis really seemed to prove Christie\u2019s assessment wrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n