Who has made the Republican debates thread

[Benjamin Frank]

I was hoping to find a thread on that here to save me from looking it up. However, it's probably worthy of further discussion.

Should candidates who don't make the first debate drop out?

With the Democratic clown bus in 2016, there was another debate only a couple weeks later, so candidates who hadn't quite qualified for the first debate felt encouraged to stay in, and I believe there were indeed several candidates who missed out on the first debate who qualified for the second debate.

Apparently there are just eight Republicans who have qualified, which would include both Trump and Christie who refuse to sign the loyalty pledge and so would be excluded.

1.Ron De Santis
2.Mike Pence
3.Chris Christie
4.Donald Trump
5.Doug Burgum
6.Vivek Ramaswamy
7.Nikki Haley
8.Tim Scott

If this is correct,even Governor Asa Hutchinson hasn't qualified or Miami Mayor Francis Suarez or former U.S Representative Will Hurd. Nor has media grandstander Larry Elder or any of the other fringier but semi credible candidates.

'On paper' that's actually a relatively short list of people who hold or held serious governmental jobs (except for Ramaswamy) and, again, 'on paper' would not be all that different than the Republicans who ran for President in, say, 1988.

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

I thought Cbriste said he would sign, but not consider it binding?

[Benjamin Frank]

I thought Cbriste said he would sign, but not consider it binding?

He says nobody has given it to him to sign.

[Ferguson97]

I don't understand why the RNC is making the pledge a requirement or why candidates are refusing to sign it. There are literally no consequences to not honoring it.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

They should modify the pledge to say you have to support the eventual nominee as long as he or she has not been indicted or convicted of a crime.

[emailking]

Showing Up to the GOP Debate Would Be the Ultimate Trump Flex

Conventional wisdom has long assumed that Donald Trump probably wouldn’t show up to the first Republican primary debate, and, moreover, that he probably shouldn’t.

...

Now, for a normal politician, one indictment would be enough cause to go into hiding (and avoid interrogation by a debate moderator and attacks by ambitious fellow pols).

But remember, Trump is not a normal politician. And just as there is precedent for Trump to skip a primary debate, there is also precedent for him to exploit a political debate in an effort to move past a damaging scandal by saying outrageous things and steamrolling his opponents.

Case in point, Trump turned out to be incredibly lucky that a presidential debate occurred on October 9, 2016—just two days after the Access Hollywood story broke.

Now, it’s likely that whoever leaked the Access Hollywood video thought they were delivering the coup de grȃce by virtue of their impeccable timing, but it had the exact opposite effect.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/showing-up-to-gop-debate-would-be-the-ultimate-trump-flex

[emailking]

Apparently there are just eight Republicans who have qualified, which would include both Trump and Christie who refuse to sign the loyalty pledge and so would be excluded.

What I can find is that Christie says he hasn't gotten the pledge yet because they're still verifying his donor count. I don't think he's said he wouldn't sign it.

[Duke 🇺🇸]

I think Christie said he would sign it but he didn't consider it binding or enforceable.

[Benjamin Frank]

https://twitter.com/steinhauserNH1/status/1692265411872498063

[Benjamin Frank]

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez claims he’s qualified for GOP presidential debate, but RNC can’t confirm
https://apnews.com/article/francis-suarez-miami-mayor-republican-debate-president-5898b380b1d239a94d9de358e72253b7

According to the Koch Brothers' financed American Radio Journal (Lighting the Brushfires of Freedumb) Suarez is considering dropping out (or 'stepping away from the campaign') if he doesn't make the debate.