GOP debate looks to be outsiders vs. insiders battle

UP NEXT

03

Bloomberg

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. – The Republican presidential candidates gather in the hills of Southern California on Wednesday for yet another battle between “the outsiders” and “the establishment.”

Front-runner Donald Trump and other self-proclaimed outsider candidates — including retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and businesswoman Carly Fiorina — figure to cast their lack of government experience as assets during the second Republican debate of the 2016 cycle.

Trump, who has led Republican polls for more than two months now, will again be center stage — literally and figuratively — during the prime-time session at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif.

“I hear they are going after me,” Trump told supporters in Dallas this week. “Whatever. Whatever.”

The more established Republicans — candidates such as Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Scott Walker — plan to counter Trump and other outsiders by trumpeting their experience and records in public office.

The inside-outside dynamic — a staple of Republican politics for more than a half-century — will likely dominate Wednesday night in the follow-up to last month’s debate in Cleveland.

Also on the prime-time stage at the Reagan library: Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Chris Christie.

A preliminary debate will feature four lower-polling candidates: Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal and George Pataki.

The crowded Republican field lost one participant since the Cleveland debate on Aug. 6, as former Texas governor Rick Perry pulled out late last week.

The second Republican gathering will be held in the building that houses documents from the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who remains a Republican icon nearly three decades after leaving the White House.

The backdrop to the debate stage is spectacular, and the library’s prize attraction: A de-commissioned Air Force One airplane.

Look for all the GOP candidates to try to claim the Reagan mantle during tonight’s sessions.

While Trump has dominated the race for months, a new candidate has emerged as a strong second-place finisher in recent polls: Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who has never sought office.

Also on the rise: Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard who lost a 2010 bid for a Senate seat in California.

Trump says he has been a better business person than Fiorina, and his deal-making experience is superior to Carson’s background as a doctor.

While Carson has questioned Trump’s religious faith — and apologized for it, saying the media distorted his comments — he has largely avoided confronting the billionaire businessman.

Carson told CNN he wants to focus on his own candidacy during the debate, not Trump.

“My intentions are to talk about my programs, the things that I would like to try to do in conjunction with my fellow Americans to get America back on the right track,” Carson said, adding that he wasn’t interested in attacking other candidates.

“I think we have much better things to do than that,” he said.

Trump and Fiorina, meanwhile, have mixed it up plenty in recent weeks.

“I think Mr. Trump’s going to be hearing quite a lot from me,” Fiorina told CNBC. from Concord, N.H. “Donald Trump and I are in totally different businesses — he’s in the entertainment business and he’s also in a privately held business.”

All three candidates have criticized what they call career politicians and the Republican establishment, saying they have failed GOP voters on issues like immigration and federal spending.

It’s a historic Republican lament.

Barry Goldwater attacked the establishment and turned the party in a more conservative direction by winning the nomination in 1964, though he lost the presidential election to President Lyndon Johnson in a landslide.

Reagan also ran largely against the establishment in 1976 and 1980, winning the presidency in that latter election. (All of the 2016 candidates will be seeking to summon Reagan’s spirit during the debate at his presidential library.)

In more recent decades, establishment Republicans have tended to prevail, from President George H.W. Bush in 1988 to President George W. Bush in 2000 to GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.

There have been a series of anti-establishment candidates in recent elections, from Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996, to Herman Cain in 2012.

Trump is unique, however. A businessman and a reality television star who has never held office, Trump has led the field for more than two months. He has expanded his lead  in many polls, despite flaps that would have sunk other candidates, including harsh comments about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, John McCain and Fiorina.

Wednesday’s debate also features three first-term senators who claim to be outsiders with government experience: Cruz of Texas, Rubio of Florida, and Paul of Kentucky.

Look for them to try to claim the kind of Tea Party support that launched their political careers and try to ascend to the top tier of candidates.

Paul said he plans to go after Trump over the businessman’s past support for Democratic candidates and policy proposals.

“I think he deserves both barrels,” Paul said of Trump during an interview with The Daily Caller. “I want to make sure everyone in the whole country knows he’s a fake conservative.”

Huckabee — an outsider candidate himself in 2008, when he lost the nomination to McCain — has been stressing social issues lately, including a high-profile rally on behalf of the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

As for Christie, the New Jersey governor is hoping his emphasis on the rising cost of entitlement spending will fuel his campaign.

Look for many of these candidates to challenge Trump during Wednesday’s debate.

Bush, the son and brother of presidents, has slipped in polls from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina — the first three states to hold contests — and is looking for a comeback. The former Florida governor prepared for the debate with a tax-cut plan his campaign described as “Reagan-inspired.”

Kasich has concentrated his campaign on New Hampshire — where he is as high as third place in some polls — but may use the debate to broaden his appeal to other states.

Walker has seen his polls plunge in recent weeks — even in Iowa, his neighboring state where victory is considered essential to his campaign.

Follow @djusatoday

• Utah flood victims ‘didn’t have a chance’; search to resume

• Raw: Forest Fires Shroud Quito In Smoke

• Gulf states urge world to do more to help refugees

• Body of missing Canadian toddler found

• Vineyard helping fight Calif. fire

• Twitter users threaten to move to Mexico if Trump is elected

• Cooler temperatures descend upon Valley Fire

• Taco Bell and booze: live mas indeed

• Cooler temperatures descend upon Valley Fire

• BMW chief collapses at Frankfurt Auto Show

• Last refugees cross to Hungary before closure

• Californians find shelter after wildfires

• Hungary closes off border with Serbia to refugees

• N. Korea says it has restarted nuclear bomb fuel plants

• Fire keeps burning in wiped-out Calif. town

• EU border agency head slams Hungary’s border fence

• Do you Vape? not in U.S. National Parks, you don’t

• Donald Trump on immigration: ‘Walls work’

• Victim and suspect identified in Delta State shooting

• Cat steals marijuana and brings it to police

• British PM pledges aid to migrants in Lebanon

• Prosthetic Hand Gives Sense of Touch, Controlled By Brain