NH GOP "Voters First Forum" **live commentary thread**

[Mr. Morden]

Welcome to coverage of the 2016 primary season's first deba--I mean, candidate forum with some coincidental debate-like qualities.

This is a two hour event being held tonight at St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH, from 7pm to 9pm Eastern.  Though I saw a blurb on C-Span's website suggesting that they may begin pre-game coverage at 6:30pm.  In any case, it'll be broadcast nationally on C-Span, and presumably streamed live on their website.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/2/voters-first-forum-to-test-14-republican-president/

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The only hint I have as to the format is given here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=215980.msg4675959#msg4675959

which suggests that it'll be a sequence of quick (probably ~4-5 minutes or so) interviews with all the candidates, then circle back to talk to each candidate a second time with followup questions, so that they can respond to what their opponents have said.  So it's like a slow motion debate.

Candidates who will participate in person:

Bush
Carson
Christie
Fiorina
Graham
Jindal
Kasich
Pataki
Perry
Santorum
Walker

In Washington for a Senate vote, but will participate via live video feed:

Cruz
Paul
Rubio

Won't be participating:

Gilmore (missed deadline for entering race)
Huckabee (never responded)
Trump (declined invitation)

[Mr. Morden]

The forum begins in about 12 hours, but feel free to post any pre-forum chatter here.

[Mr. Morden]

Reading this interview:

http://nhpr.org/post/14-gop-candidates-no-donald-trump-square-voters-first-forum

it sounds like each candidate will have "about seven minutes total" between the two rounds of questioning.  I guess they'll try to keep the speaking time roughly equal, which is something that may not happen at the Fox debate on Thursday.

[Mr. Morden]

Did any of you guys vote in the poll from The Union Leader asking what question they should ask?

I did, actually.  I don't remember which topics I picked exactly.  I think the top topics I picked were foreign policy ones though, followed by economic issues, but I don't remember exactly how the topics were divided up.

[Mr. Morden]

Here's the live feed:

http://www.c-span.org/video/?327157-1/2016-republican-candidates-voters-first-forum&live

Event will begin in ~15 minutes.

[Mr. Morden]

I spotted Christie's wife in the crowd.  Also may have seen Judd Gregg.

The average age of the audience has got to be about 60 years old.

[Mr. Morden]

At the bottom of the screen on C-SPAN, they briefly showed the speaking order:

Perry, Santorum, Kasich, Graham, Christie, Carson, Bush, Fiorina, Jindal, Walker, Pataki, Paul, Cruz, Rubio.

[Mr. Morden]

All the candidates come on stage….don't leave them up there for too long, or this might count as a debate!

[Mr. Morden]

Is the video not loading for anyone else.

You did click the play button, right? 

If it doesn't work for you, I think there are other sites streaming it out there.  They might have more info at http://www.unionleader.com

[Mr. Morden]

This is funny, how the other candidates are in the audience, and we get reaction shots of them.  They just panned to Christie while Perry was talking.

[Mr. Morden]

Perry's time was about 4.5 minutes or so.

[Mr. Morden]

Everyone's getting immigration questions, it seems.  Though I guess that was one of the top issues picked by Republican voters.

[Mr. Morden]

Carson: Tax system should be based on God.

[Mr. Morden]

Bush: Watch out for ISIS trying to recruit people via Twitter.

[Mr. Morden]

Why are they giving Fiorina these fluffy biographical questions, rather than the issue questions that the others got?

[Mr. Morden]

Cruz/Paul/Rubio join in Brady Bunch style.

[Mr. Morden]

"What country would you visit first?" has to be the dumbest question I've ever heard at one of these thing.

[Mr. Morden]

Paul: Don't go to war like it's a game of Risk.

[Mr. Morden]

Rubio sounds like he needs water.

[Mr. Morden]

Rubio: We're losing information!

[Mr. Morden]

You don't have to be a lawyer or judge to be a supreme court justice


-Ben Carson, 2015

Just like you don't have to have any experience to be president!

[Mr. Morden]

Here is the NY Times writeup on this event:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/us/politics/confrontation-is-avoided-in-forum-for-republican-presidential-candidates.html?_r=0

[Mr. Morden]

20 pages of comments just for this thing?  This place is going to be a madhouse on Thursday.

[Mr. Morden]

Found these on Twitter....pics of the other candidates in the audience while one of their opponents was speaking:

[Mr. Morden]

Ftr, ~38% of all posts on Atlas forum today were in this thread.