The thing about Rand Paul's we don't know where he stands whining is the Senator has no criticism of the FOX moderator giving Trump a loaded gotcha question, instead of asking a policy/issues one so that the Senator's uncertainty might have been lessened, for the Senator's benefit, AND for voters. Then this, from the AP feed:
On Sunday, he was back, splashed across the weekend news shows, dismissing the latest firestorm to consume his campaign and explaining how he cherishes women and would be their strongest advocate if elected. "I'm leading by double digits, so maybe I shouldn't change," he boasted.
That in a nutshell is the conundrum the other sixteen face. Trump resonates with the extreme GOP "base" because what he says is what they want to hear, as he says it, and the other sixteen want to posture "not us" while wanting higher polling numbers with that very same base.
This is not in praise of Trump; it is in recognition of who the non-elite Republican voters are in their willingness to vote against their own economic best interests in the ways the 1% wants to manipulate. The batch of them, like Romney caught last cycle on video, dismss around half of the electorate as immune to being propagandized into bad decision making when voting. That leaves the howto question, how to fool enough of the people enough of the time -- and, oh look, Hillary sent email ...
They have nothing to offer, except the negativity and counter-productivity of a Scott Walker, with its echo with the likes of Walker's Minnesota embarrassing emissary, Kurt Daudt.
____________UPDATE_____________
Among these seventeen candidates, most very wealthy with Trump likely the wealthiest, which have spouses who have ever held a job or had to work for a salary or a wage? That's as legitimate a question about attitude toward women as the gotcha FOX aimed at Trump. Who among the spouses of the seventeen have had boo said of them in the media aside from Frank Fiorina (e.g., here and here)? From last cycle we can recall the Romney spouse's privileged lifestyle. On the other party's side, like him or not, at least the frontrunner's spouse there has held a job.
There was Ivana Trump, and beyond that current link readers can do a web search if they care. She had her fifteen minutes of fame, and the media, thankfully, are not overly attentive to that part of Donald Trump's background.
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Before the press has had its time to message us folks after the FOX - GOP pair of events, there is this, commented upon here, the latter item saying in part [link omitted; already given]:
The NBC News online poll conducted by SurveyMonkey over Friday night and into Saturday showed possible movement among the candidates following the debates, as well as Republican primary voters declaring Carly Fiorina the overall debate winner.
Donald Trump has the support of 23% of Republican primary voters following the debate, which had the highest viewership ever for a primary debate, with 24 million watchers. The poll was in the field for only a 24-hour period, during which Mr. Trump continued to make more headlines for his comments about Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly, which got him disinvited from speaking at a gathering of conservatives in Atlanta.
Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina were the candidates with the most gains in support, 7 points and 6 points respectively, but there was no real change among most candidates given an error estimate of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
Among Trump supporters, a majority – 54% – said they would vote for him for president as an independent candidate, even if he does not win the Republican nomination. During the Republican debate, Trump was met with both boos and cheers from the crowd as he said he would not rule out running as an independent if he didn’t get the Republican nod. About 1 in 5 Trump supporters said they would support the eventual Republican candidate, while about the same number said it would depend.
Among Republican and Republican-leaning voters who watched either of the debates or followed coverage of the debates in the news, Carly Fiorina emerged as the clear winner. Twenty-two percent said Fiorina won or had the best performance in the debate, followed by 18% who said Trump had the best performance. However, another 29% said Trump did the worst in the debate, [...]
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While not offered as definitive, but as interesting, the Survey Monkey-NBC poll [link above] had a chart [emphasis added]:
The noted pair-focus seems relevant, in that it pairs the candidate with tons of money against one hard pressed to hustle support beyond the likes of Kurt Daudt, who holds a position of power in Minnesota, but one that does not translate all that well into campaigning fortune. Walker has to hustle to keep himself a player.
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As to the tackiness of the dueling egos dimension of the Trump-Kelly kitsch, there is this as background that Trump's was not the sole overstoked ego in play.