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The GOP Debate Was Not Presidential

Ruth Marcus on

WASHINGTON -- One of the 10 Republicans who debated Wednesday night is going to end up as the party's nominee. None of them looked like presidential material.

That theme was sounded early on, when Ohio Gov. John Kasich swatted away the first question -- what is your biggest weakness? -- by addressing the larger weakness of the field: "My great concern is that we are on the verge, perhaps, of picking someone who cannot do this job."

Indeed. The two, manifestly unqualified front-runners, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, were remarkably muted. Trump simply repeated his, yes, comic-book version of a presidential campaign -- huge wall, huge tax cut, huge Trump smarts -- except when he was shamelessly denying he had said what was in his own immigration plan.

Where Trump craves attention, Carson, curiously, seems to flinch from it. Even when pitched softballs, he veers quickly from substance to off-topic platitudes.

Asked about his plan to replace Medicare with individual savings accounts, Carson tossed out some numbers (wrong, actually; 55 million are enrolled, not 48 million, which matters because it reduces the money available in Carson's private accounts). Then he shifted to conservative auto-pilot: "It was never intended that the government should be in every aspect of our lives. This is a country that is of, for and by the people."

Or consider this answer about drug companies profiteering on life-saving medicines, reproduced here in its incoherent entirety:

 

"Well, there is no question that some people go overboard when it comes to trying to make profits, and they don't take into consideration the American people. What we have to start thinking about, as leaders, particularly in government, is what can we do for the average American? And you think about the reasons that we're having such difficulty right now with our job market.

"Well, the average small manufacturer, whatever they're manufacturing, drugs or anything, if they have less than 50 employees, the average cost in terms of regulations is $34,000 per employee. Makes it a whole lot easier for them to want to go somewhere else.

"So what we're going to have to start doing instead of, you know, picking on this group or this group is we're going to have to have a major reduction in the regulatory influence that is going on. The government is not supposed to be in every part of our lives, and that is what is causing the problem."

Paging Dr. Carson, the question was about pharmaceutical companies charging astronomical prices for medications. That's the government's fault?

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