A separate question occurred to me about the event on "the other side of town" up there in Iowa tonight.
Do you think Glenn Beck will be noticeably in attendance at the debate tonight, to provide additional public support to his partner Ted Cruz?
Posted on 01/28/2016 10:58:41 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum will attend Donald Trump's pro-veterans event on Thursday at the same time as Fox News's prime-time presidential debate.
Spokesmen for both candidates confirmed to The Hill that the Republican presidential will still participate in Thursday's undercard GOP debate, but will head to the Trump event after.
The undercard debate begins at 7 p.m. Eastern, two hours before Trump's event is slated to start three miles away. That gives candidates who failed to reach the main stage the freedom to participate, while anyone slated for the main stage would have to skip the debate altogether to attend.
Huckabee said that he didn't speak with Trump directly about the plans, but that his staff had expressed interest in conversation with the Trump campaign. He added that he doesn't believe the decision to join Trump at the event sends a negative message to those candidates taking part in the main-stage debate.
"It's to honor the troops, it's not an endorsement of Donald Trump's candidacy. I'm still running for president, we've got the caucuses Monday night, but I'm delighted to join with Donald Trump in an effort to salute the veterans," Huckabee said Thursday on CNN's "Wolf."
"I'm not invited to the main stage, I would have loved to have been on that stage ... if they aren't sitting out in the audience watching me, I don't feel any compulsion that I have to be there for that debate.
Trump's campaign scheduled the event after he decided to pull out of Fox News's debate because the network issued a strongly worded statement in response to his calls to remove Megyn Kelly as a moderator.
His campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, has said the event will raise funds for veterans organizations, but the campaign has not elaborated which ones will benefit.
Trump tweeted
Thursday morning that two campaigns had reached out with interest in joining his event, but he did not identify the candidates.
His decision to skip the debate has prompted criticism from his GOP rivals.
Ted Cruz, his closest challenger in recent polls, challenged him to a one-on-one debate this Saturday, and two Cruz-aligned super-PACs promised to donate $1.5 million to veterans organizations if Trump agreed.
The decision by both candidates to stand by Trump despite criticism from other candidates could be seen by supporters as a signal to support Trump.
Both Huckabee, the 2008 Iowa caucus winner, and Santorum, the 2012 caucus winner, have long histories with the state's evangelical population.
But they have seen those voters flee him in droves, mostly to Trump and Cruz, and both lag behind the majority of the field in fundraising.
While other rivals framed Trump's decision as fear to defend his record, Huckabee lauded Trump for manipulating the media during an interview this week on Fox's "Hannity" and jokingly asked
to take his spot on the main debate stage.
During the CNN interview, Huckabee said Trump would be on his vice presidential shortlist.
Huckabee also didn't argue with the assertion that he'd be more comfortable with Trump as the nominee than Cruz, and took the opportunity to criticize Cruz for cozying up to hedge-fund billionaires and for moderating his stances depending on the audience.
Too late guys, Joey Scarborough already has his nose up there collecting Trump DNA so he can get the VP slot.
I hope Trump is as frugal with my money as he is with his own, once he's elected President.
An unreported story: Is Bush poisoning the well for future Republicans through his wastefulness of donors' contributions?
Trump did the right thing.
If I were Cruz, I would pull a Clint. I would drag an empty chair to the stage for folks to have a target.
Agree
The whole thing was a head-fake. There was no Megyn Kelly. That was a feint. Trump needed a dramatic reason, a theatrical reason, to walk out of the last debate. Megyn Kelly was the most convenient tool at his disposal to do so. And she worked perfectly. Because everyone gleefully volunteered to be suckered in by the head-fake, the rope-a-dope, and jump all over Trump with the joyous accusations of *afraid of a girl*, *afraid to debate*, and basically ignore the walk-away as the supreme act of *independent leadership* that it was.
An act that pulled Huckabee and Santorum, the previous two Iowa winners, into his corner (or at least into his arena) just days before the Iowa vote and, in an instance of incredible irony, at the same time as the main-table debate after they both came off the kiddie-table debate.
They move from the kiddie table to the central arena, an arena that makes the main debate something less than the kiddie debate!
Huckabee and Santorum get their revenge on the Big Boys and lend last-minute historical Iowa star power to Trump.
But as good as that is for Trump, even better is the one-on-one debate challenge from Cruz, which never would have occurred if Trump had slogged his way through another dreary #7 but now allowed him to say WITH THE FULL MEGAPHONE OF TOTAL MEDIA ATTENTION:
When a judge says you are eligible, then a one-on-one is ok.
Check and mate.
Masterful.
A separate question occurred to me about the event on "the other side of town" up there in Iowa tonight.
Do you think Glenn Beck will be noticeably in attendance at the debate tonight, to provide additional public support to his partner Ted Cruz?
Trump on CNN saying he got an apogy from Fox. Lol.
Go Trump
Trump was a no show.
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