WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The ten candidates who qualified to participate based on their standing in five major opinion polls fall into three categories – The Clear Leader, The Second Tier and the Also-Rans.
The Clear Leader
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump has confounded the Republican, or Grand Old Party (GOP), establishment and America’s national media pundits at every turn. His rise in popularity among the party’s grassroots base has been meteoric.
Trump enters the debate with vast advantages. He has been the top reality star on US national network television for 14 years on his show “The Apprentice.” He is also a brilliant businessman and negotiator who has appeared regularly on Fox Television as a political pundit for many years.
Trump can be compared to a champion soccer team playing on its home ground. The format of the debate appears to play to his strengths.
The Second Tier
Bush is the clear favorite of the GOP establishment and has enormous financial support while Walker impressed right wingers by defeating a public service union in an acrimonious dispute in Wisconsin.
Before Trump’s entry, the two candidates were expected to be clear frontrunners, but both have often appeared wooden, complacent and inarticulate.
The Also-Rans
Both had hoped to attract support from social conservatives, evangelical Christians and the Tea Party movement, but these constituencies have instead flocked to Trump.
Senators Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz all had high hopes and plausible strategies, but all three are trailing badly. Their lack of executive experience and image as professional politicians has hit them badly.
Rubio hopes to inherit establishment support if Bush becomes clearly unelectable, and Paul’s libertarian constituency has proven nonexistent so far according to polls. Cruz has major financial support but his attraction to voters has so far been very weak.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Ohio Governor John Kasich were not expected to make the cut at all, but scraped into the debate at the last minute following substantive, serious statements at the New Hampshire forum on Monday.
Both Christie and Kasich benefit from being experienced governors with records of achievement in two major, important states and both are moderate pragmatists. Kasich in particular could go further than expected.
The first primary election for Republican voters is still six months away in New Hampshire, but the first debate on Thursday could set or change popular perceptions of candidates.
