OPINION:
Why are politicians the slowest learners?
Every politician on the debate stage Wednesday night in Milwaukee has been in a political debate before. All of them have done well enough in those debates against other politicians that they got themselves elected to something. Some of them are masters at the craft of political debate.
Yet it was the one guy who is new to politics and who had never set foot on a debate stage — never run for anything before — who won the debate.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy walked out there, commanded attention, mixed it up with everyone, took all the arrows, distinguished himself on big issues, made the important points of his campaign and seemed to be having fun the entire time.
As one internet wag put it, it looked like seven people who hated former President Donald Trump versus Mr. Ramaswamy.
“Almost reminiscent of 2016,” he said.
Exactly.
Former President Donald Trump was not on the stage. As moderator Bret Baier of Fox News amiably described him, Mr. Trump was “the elephant not in the room.”
And the only person who seems to have learned anything from the rise of Mr. Trump and his mastery of politics on the big stage is a 38-year-old son of immigrants whose name nobody seems able to pronounce properly. Best of all, he does not care if you butcher his name.
“I appreciate best efforts,” Mr. Ramaswamy says with a bright smile. After all, it’s an irrelevant detail in the fight to save our nation.
The biggest loser of the night was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Not that his performance was so terrible. It was moderately fine.
His problem Wednesday night was the same problem he has had since he launched his campaign for president. He simply fails to connect with voters outside his home state. Despite his fantastic record of accomplishment in Florida, it is hard to see how Mr. DeSantis will suddenly learn how to connect.
I mean, how do you manage to be the stiff one on stage — while standing next to former Vice President Mike Pence?
The most awkward moment of the night was when Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Pence both showed up with the same canned line about how the next election is not about Jan. 6, 2021, but Jan. 20, 2025 — or something like that.
It was like showing up to the social event of the year wearing the same dress as your bitchy neighbor.
Mr. Pence struggled, walking a nonexistent line between being the most experienced political leader on the stage and somehow not to blame for the country swirling down the toilet today.
At one point, Mr. Pence displayed leadership by asking permission to speak. The moderator responded: “We’ll be with you in a second,” just as the bell went off, sounding like the next window had finally opened up for Mr. Pence down at the DMV.
Later in the debate, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie showered Mr. Pence with praise for defending the Constitution on Jan. 6, 2021 — even though that date was supposedly not what this was all about.
Mr. Pence seemed to glow in the praise until realizing that Mr. Christie was only there for the boos. And boy, did he rack up the boos.
One of several shining moments for Mr. Ramaswamy came when he announced he would quit bankrolling the war in Ukraine and divert that money to stop the invasion at our own border. Specifically, Mr. Ramaswamy roasted Republicans for making a pilgrimage to Kyiv to pay homage to their “pope,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Mr. Christie quickly piped up: “I went to Ukraine!”
Like I said, he was only there for the boos.
Luckily for him, moderator Martha McCallum sent a flying saucer to rescue him, asking if, as president (in another solar system, obviously), he would declassify government information on UFOs.
“I get the UFO question?” he scoffed.
But at least nobody booed.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
Correction: In a previous version of the column, the year of the next presidential inauguration was listed incorrectly.
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