Another establishment guy bites the dust!
Two candidates who have been part of each of the prime-time Republican debates so far, Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee, have been demoted to next week’s undercard event because of low national poll numbers, delivering a major blow to their campaigns.
It could be worse — and for George Pataki and Lindsey Graham it was. They won’t appear in either debate Tuesday on Fox Business Network. The cable news channel limited participation in the main event in Milwaukee to just eight candidates and to just four in the earlier debate.
The candidates shut out of the debates accused the news media of taking away the right of voters to decide who would be the nominee. They also revisited questions about using polls with statistically insignificant differences between candidates as a means of elevating some and devaluing others.
It’s a shame for Huckabee, who is likely losing many of his supporters to Ben Carson and Donald Trump, but it’s surprising for Christie, who performed extremely well in the last debate and has gained popularity in the last week or so. The Garden State Governor has never looked the same to voters after his post Sandy lovefest with Barack Obama.