Thread: Trump calls on GOP to boot low-polling candidates

December 19, 2015, 05:08 pm
Trump calls on GOP to boot low-polling candidates

By Bradford Richardson

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump says the Republican National Committee (RNC) should disqualify candidates from primary debates who have failed to file paperwork to get their names on the ballots in major states.

“Now, if I were running the party, I’d say, ‘Excuse me, if you can’t win the state of X, a major state, if you can’t win Virginia because you’re not allowed to go in, or if you can’t win South Carolina or you can’t win this one or that one, because you didn’t file, that means it’s taken off your list, you’re not allowed to be in the debate anymore,’ ” Trump said at a rally in Iowa on Saturday.

“When you’re at like, this guy [former New York governor George] Pataki, he’s been at zero for months. He couldn’t get elected dog-catcher in New York. The guy’s at zero for months. And he keeps on staying and staying,” he added.

The Republican primary front-runner said the bloated primary field does not allow for serious policy discussions at debates.

“We need more time,” he said. “You know, when we’re talking about terrorism, I don’t want to be given 30 seconds. ‘Mr. Trump, in 30 seconds, what would you do about terrorism, sir?’ I said, ’30 seconds?’ ”

He also said unpopular candidates are “wasting a lot of time” and “ought to get out” of the race.

Trump said Democratic primary front-runner Hillary Clinton should not be in the race due to an FBI investigation into a private email server she held while secretary of State.

“I mean honestly, she should not be allowed to run. And in a recent Fox poll, I beat her easily,” he said, referring to a Fox News poll Friday that actually showed him trailing Clinton by 11 points head-to-head.

Trump had led Clinton an a previous version of the poll, which may have been what he was referring to.

“By the way, she should not be allowed to run,” he added. “She should not be allowed to run.”

The billionaire businessman insinuated that Clinton takes time away from the campaign trail in order to rest because she lacks vitality.

“She goes away, she goes back home to sleep, she doesn’t have the energy – I’m telling you – she doesn’t have the stamina, she doesn’t have the strength,” he said.

He also called GOP presidential rival and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush a “tough guy” for running an ad that spliced him out of a debate exchange.

“It was so sad to watch him, so sad, Bush,” he said. “No, I mean it’s so sad, I mean, it’s close to incompetent, you look at that, it was terrible. And then he does an ad where it’s his piece, but he cuts out my piece, because my piece is what killed him, but his piece – and then they cut it. I said ‘Where’s my piece!’

“Oh, yeah, he’s a tough guy, he’s tough,” he said, adding that Bush was guilty of “false advertising.”

Trump also accused people who have criticized his friendly rhetoric toward Russian President Vladimir Putin of being “jealous.”

“I think that we can do things with Russia that our to our advantage – not to our advantage, it’s a mutual advantage,” he said. “And then I have people, now they’re jealous as hell, because he’s not mentioning these people, he’s not going to mention them, so they’re jealous as hell.”

“So a couple of them came out with, ‘Oh, you don’t want to be friends’ – oh, no, we don’t want to be friends, we want to continue to spend another $5 trillion to continue to fight,” he added.

- Updated at 5:40 p.m.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...ing-candidates

I agree with Trump on this. The GOP definitely needs to thin down its candidate list so those left standing can have a more serious discussion on the issues and spend less time defending themselves from their opponents.