Donald Trump, who teased America into thinking he might run for President, has been defeated in the media by the very GOP candidates he claimed he might want to defeat at the polls. After more than a week’s notice, all major GOP candidates have responded to Trumps’ invitation to moderate a debate, and most have said thanks, but no thanks. Only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will be present at Trump’s Newsmax December 27 debate, amusingly billed as “the most important meeting of the major Republican candidates before the Iowa caucus and primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida!”
Gingrich, sensing an opportunity, almost immediately RSVP’s “yes,” while other candidates hemmed and hawed. The first “no’s” came from Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul, whom Trump immediately dismissed as “unelectable.” Ron Paul called the idea of Trump — a former possible candidate who not only has claimed he mint run as an independent, but is a reality show host — “wildly inappropriate.”
“The selection of a reality television personality to host a presidential debate that voters nationwide will be watching is beneath the office of the Presidency and flies in the face of that office’s history and dignity,” Jesse Benton, Ron Paul’s national campaign chairman, said in a statement, according to CNN.
Benton added, “Mr. Trump’s participation as moderator will distract from questions and answers concerning important issues such as the national economy, crushing federal government debt, the role of the federal government, foreign policy, and the like. To be sure, Mr. Trump’s participation will contribute to an unwanted circus-like atmosphere.”
Which of course sent Trump swinging.
“As I said in the past and will reiterate again, Ron Paul has a zero chance of winning either the nomination or the Presidency,” Trump said in a statement to CNN. “My poll numbers were substantially higher than any of his poll numbers, at any time, and when I decided not to run, due to the equal time provisions concerning my hit show The Apprentice, I was leading the Republican field.”
Now, Michele Bachmann, surprisingly, has declined, and so has Rick Perry.
But perhaps it was GOP Chairman Reince Priebus who ended any chances the debate had, when he, today, came out and essentially denounced the idea of a Trump-hosted debate.
Politico reported:
“We appreciate what Mr. Trump has done, but if you’re still talking about potentially running as an independent candidate, I think that’s a problem,†Priebus said on Fox News. “I think that would be malpractice for me as an RNC chairman to not believe that that is an issue.â€
Although Priebus repeated a previously made assertion that it was simply up to the candidates to “do whatever they want to do,†the RNC head repeated that Trump’s continued flirtation with a potential 2012 bid for the White House concerned him.
“I think that having a successful businessman serving as a moderator has a lot of value. But the issue here is whether the moderator should still be a person who’s still batting around the idea of running as an independent. I think that should give some of these candidates some concern,†he said.