[October 31, 2015] The third Republican debate was this past Wednesday. Unlike other analysis here at this leadership blog, we will look at those who did not perform well and attempt to uncover some of those traits we find in leaders that perhaps they did not demonstrate. Using a number of senior leaders, who were happy to provide their opinions, they have a twist that is interesting.1
Hosted by CNBC, the third Republican debate had 10 participants. The lower tier debate is not in this analysis although a number of interesting moments came from it. As in the other analyses, the names of the senior leaders are not used and their ideas and opinions are strictly based on the candidates’ performance from this debate.
In all the Republican or Democratic debates, there are two main purposes for the televised format (other than making money for the networks). First, the debates inform voters from their political party about the candidates that they will be voting on during the Primary Election. Second, it informs the public about major national issues and, to a limited degree, of U.S. foreign policy. In that respect the first two debates were adequate but the CNBC moderated debate was disappointing.
Putting aside the poor moderator performance by the CNBC hosts, candidates that showed the fewer leader traits appeared to have scripted responses, could not determine important from irrelevant questioning, and unnecessarily attacked other candidates on the stage. Our senior leaders were unanimous on the point that three of the candidates were inflexible and came across as unnecessarily combative when a more candid demeanor would have sufficed.
Of course, the question I’m personally asked most about these days is who gave the “worst” performance. I asked this question of our leaders and they were unexpectedly consistent in who they would least prefer as a president of the U.S. Those they considered the bottom three were John Kasich, Ron Paul, and Jeb Bush.
The inclusion of Jeb Bush surprised me a little but their reasoning was that he mishandled too many opportunities to rise above the fray. John Kasich was an example of having an “attack agenda” and not being flexible enough to adapt to the changing debate environment. Bush and Kasich did not do themselves any favor in their poorly constructed attacks on other candidates.
Rand Paul hasn’t changed much from the previous debates and he was consistently disliked the most by our senior leaders. The military senior leaders were particularly adamant that Paul would not make a good president (I think this is more to do with his Libertarian political philosophy than his debate performance).
While the election is still more than a year out and a lot can happen we can expect a reduction in the numbers of those running for the Republican nomination. What should be considered is how future Republican and Democratic debates are structured. There is a media bias that has crept into them, not unexpectedly so, but the failure of CNBC moderators to be serious will perhaps lead to that change.2
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- Of the 12 senior leaders who provided input, seven are military, one senior officer in commercial company, one retired CEO; one senior education official, and two from non-profit organizations. This biases the analysis toward military leaders but I found that their input was not that different from the others. Like my question to them was the same in the other two debates, “Can you tell me your thoughts about any of these men or woman if they were to be elected President of the United States.” They were to consider any information they have about the candidates but were to restrict themselves to the debate as the sole source of opinions.
- Due to CNBC moderator performance, the upcoming Republican debate to be hosted by the NBC was changed. NBC will no longer host it. http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/10/30/gop-suspends-partnership-with-nbc-news-for-february-debate
[Disclaimer] I have no affiliation with any presidential candidate, nor do any of my relatives. I’m a registered Republican with a history of voting. The views here are mine and mine alone and I am responsible for any errors contained in my blog.