3 Things to Watch for at the Republican Undercard Presidential Debate
Before Donald Trump, Ben Carson and the six other leading contenders in the Republican presidential primary race take the stage at Tuesday night's primetime debate on Fox Business, four other candidates will get a chance to hash out the issues at the undercard debate aired before it on the same network.
Does any of the JVers have a legitimate chance of making it to the White House? Probably not. Is it still worth watching? Maybe.
In a world where a former reality TV star who puts a $3 billion price tag on his last name and a retired neurosurgeon with a truthiness problem appear to have better chances of making it to the Oval Office than three sitting governors, four current senators and the son of a presidential dynasty, who's to say what makes sense anymore? Or whether the debates should even still be happening?
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and current Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will be joined on the pre-debate debate stage this evening by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and sitting New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, both of whom have been demoted since last time around due to low numbers in the polls.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and former New York Governor George Pataki, previous participants in the last undercard discussion, will be nowhere to be seen. Maybe Pataki will pull out a dark horse victory anyway. And Graham's jokes will be sorely missed.
Substance-wise, the presence of Christie and Huckabee on the undercard debate stage may give the discussion a boost.
"As the number of candidates starts to shrink a little bit, certainly the amount of back-and-forth in both of the debates will increase, and as the undercard gets made up of more credible candidates ... my hope would be that candidates like that would get another look," said Oren Cass, Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative-leaning think tank based in New York.
TheStreet will be covering both the undercard and primetime Republican debates live starting this evening at 7 p.m. In the meantime, here are three things to watch for if you decide to tune in.
1. Christie Can Channel Trump
Christie's demotion to the undercard debate has to have stung, but it also gives him a unique opportunity. On a debate stage sans Trump, the New Jersey governor can let the brash persona that has marked his political career shine.
"With only four people on the stage and a larger-than-life kind of personality, we may see a debate that looks rather like the first debate in which one candidate, in that case, Trump, clearly dominated the stage," said Chris Arterton, professor of political management and former dean at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management.
Christie himself has indicated he has no plans of slowing down. After the announcement was made that he would be left off of the prime-time stage, he said in a tweet, "It doesn't matter the stage, give me a real podium and I'll be there to talk about real issues like this."
2. The Clash of the Governors
Three of the four men on the undercard debate stage are current or former governors, and the dynamics between them could make for an interesting evening.
Take, for example, Jindal and Christie, both sitting governors who, once considered rising GOP stars, have been muffled out by the Trump and Carson-driven noise.
"I think Chris Christie and Bobby Jindal are, frankly, both very viable candidates and in a different election cycle would be getting a lot more attention," said Cass.
But the two are an interesting juxtaposition, and they might be fun to watch together on stage.
"The dynamic between two governors I think is important, how Jindal and Christie relate to each other. They both come from very, very different states, yet both have, I think, concerns about the relationship of their state government to the federal government," said Arterton.
Christie's interplay with Huckabee will be worth noting as well, especially if the subject of entitlement reform arises.
"I think it's very interesting that Christie and Huckabee have dropped down to that debate, because they are the two who, I would say last time around, had the most substantive policy argument around entitlement reform," said Cass. "Huckabee I think is the loudest voice opposing some of the entitlement reform and arguing that we have to somehow keep the programs in their current form. . . . Christie, at the other extreme, is most vocally insisting that significant reform is necessary. I would certainly expect that debate to break out again."
3. More Talking Time and a Microcosm of GOP Dynamics
Santorum, Jindal, Christie and Huckabee should each get about 12 minutes of talking time in this evening's hour-long happy hour debate. And a less crowded playing field may very well play to the candidates' advantage.
"It should have a pretty different dynamic because of the personalities involved, and it might be even more interesting," said Steven Greene, an associate professor of political science at North Carolina State University and expert in elections, public opinion and political parties. "Mike Huckabee's done his time on Fox News. Chris Christie knows how to be a blowhard. . . . In terms of having some high emotions and drama, there's a good chance we'll have that."
The four candidates also highlight the divergent strains within the fractured Republican Party, serving as a sort of microcosm of the bigger picture of what's going on with the GOP.
"One could look at this with the idea of lanes in mind," said "You have Santorum and Jindal, more on the conservative line, certainly Santorum and Huckabee contesting the sort of religious conservative approach. And that leaves Christie pretty free on the establishment lane," said Arterton. "Given that people expect, ultimately, the race to boil down to candidates that represent these particularly constituencies among a much-divided Republican party, that might be of interest to watch whether the interplay between the candidates breaks down along religious conservative, deeply conservative vs. pro-establishment, more established types."
The next Republican Presidential debate starts at 9 p.m. ET this Tuesday, 11/10. Join TheStreet.com for live coverage of the event, starting with the under-card debate at 7 p.m. Tune in for stories, videos, and more, and make sure to follow us at @TheStreet on Twitter for live commentary by TheStreet Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Kanige during the debate.
This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.