The winner of Thursday’s Republican presidential debate
was none of the top 10 candidates who made it onto the stage. According to a
new poll of GOP votes it was former business executive Carly Fiorina, who was
widely viewed as the standout in the earlier 5 p.m. faceoff of those also
running.

How can that be?

I have to believe that many GOP stalwarts, in response to
the repeated praise online and on television of Fiorina’s largely ignored
performance in the so-called “Happy Hour” debate, tracked down video and in-print highlights of what the
former Hewlett Packard CEO had to say – and clearly liked what they heard.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that a
solid 22 percent of Republicans said Fiorina was the winner among all 17
candidates in the two debates. Donald Trump was second at 18 percent (though he
was also viewed as the biggest loser, at 29 percent) and Sen. Marco Rubio was
third at 13 percent.

More importantly for Fiorina, the lone woman in the GOP
contest, she jumped dramatically in the poll question asking who voters favor
for the nomination, from less than 1 percent in pre-debate polls to 8 percent
now, which puts her just shy of the top three candidates.

Trump still leads in the NBC/WSJ survey (23 percent)
followed by Sen. Ted Cruz (13 percent) and Dr. Ben Carson (11 percent).
It appears that Cruz, Carson and Fiorina gained in this
post-debate poll at the expense of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin
Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Rand Paul.

The question I have: How can the same GOP electorate that
favors (by a plurality) a clownish figure like Trump have the sense to go back,
analyze Fiorina’s statements on policy, and determine that she was the winner of a debate in
which she (technically) did not participate?



In part due to questionable scheduling in Cleveland by the Republican Ntnl. Committee, the audience was nearly empty at the early, first presidential debate on Thursday.

 

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