Live Blog South Carolina Republican Debate(s): Going South and then some

Good Evening!

The main stage debate of the Republican party Presidential wannabes will showcase seven candidates.  Four candidates were sent to the kiddie table but Rand Paul has decided to stay home since this time he couldn’t whine himself out of his basement level poll numbers . The main debates starts at 9 pm eastern.  It’s on the Fox Business News Network so be prepared to hunt for it or to stream it.   (EWWWWWWWWWW)

Seven Republican candidates are set to clash in the sixth GOP presidential debate Thursday night, hosted by FOX Business in Charleston, SC. The debate, slated to begin at 9pm ET, will feature Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and John Kasich.

Another four candidates who did not meet the network’s public polling requirements qualified for an undercard debate at 6pm ET: Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. But Paul has announced that he will boycott the event, accusing the network and the RNC of picking winners and losers in the GOP field.

Fiorina already said something completely objectionable in the currently running kiddie debate.

Unlike another woman in this race, I WAS actually spending time with my husband.”‪

Newsweek is live blogging both the debates here and she’s a mean one, Ms. Grinch.

“Unlike another woman in this race, I actually like spending time with my husband.” Thus did former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina open the sixth Republican primary debate in Charleston, South Carolina, on Thursday. It was a barb aimed squarely at Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, whom pundits and analysts expect to be a popular topic of discussion throughout the evening. Fiorina also criticized Clinton’s response to the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead—an event recently immortalized in a factually dubious film directed by Michael Bay, of Transformers fame.

“We should stop letting refugees into this country,” Fiorina continued. A similar proposal to refuse refugees, floated by Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, earned him a bump in the polls, but has garnered widespread criticism from the political class.

As the night went on, Fiorina did not let up on Clinton. “Mrs. Clinton, you cannot wipe a server with a towel,” she said, referring to the Democratic candidate’s ongoing private email server scandal.

South Carolina is looking to play an important role in the elections so how the candidates position themselves will be significant.  

As this state prepared to host GOP primary debates on Thursday and next month, many Republicans are rooting for South Carolina to reclaim its kingmaker role in 2016.

Polls currently show celebrity businessman Donald Trump with a commanding lead, followed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. But voters here are widely considered up for grabs, likely to be influenced by earlier contests in Iowa and New Hampshire and the unpredictable 11 days of the campaign after those votes and before the Feb. 20 GOP primary.

Candidates who are struggling in Iowa—such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose father and brother won victories in South Carolina that helped them clinch the nomination—are jockeying for better-than-expected showings in New Hampshire, hopefully followed by a strong finish in South Carolina.

“It’s a chance to reset the race,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who quit running for president last month and has questioned Mr. Trump’s ability to build a winning national coalition in the general election. “My goal for South Carolina Republicans is get back to our roots. Let’s pick a conservative who can actually win the race because winning matters.”

South Carolina Republicans say they have had better luck picking candidates who end up winning the GOP nomination because the electorate is broader and more representative of the country than in the smaller states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

There are evangelical Christians in the northwestern part of the state near Bob Jones University in Greenville; affluent, more moderate professionals and retirees around the capital in Columbia and along the Atlantic coast in Charleston, Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach, and foreign policy hawks concentrated around the military bases in the central and southern parts of the state.

“South Carolina is a test for every facet of a campaign,” Mr. Moore said. “It’s not just about organization. It’s not just about message. It’s about winning a state with a broad and diverse electorate, so really it’s a test if you can win beyond South Carolina.”

In particular, South Carolina looks like a gateway to a potentially pivotal cluster of nearby southern states that will vote on March 1.

So, pull up a seat and join us for a lively discussion!!