The Bloodbath in Boulder
Referee's Report Card

October 29, 2015 - The 3rd Republican debate went down tonight in Boulder, Colorado. Go here to check out our preview and find out who was in the first debate, and who made the final cut and went to the main debate in prime time. As always, we called penalties throughout the debate. Read below for an explanation of who spent time in the penalty box and what foul put them there.

The Main Debate

Senator Marco Rubio

​Puck out of bounds – The most heated moments of the debate came from the candidates attacking the media for bias against Republican candidates. When asked about the editorial written by the Florida Sun Sentinel calling for him to resign for being absent for 59 votes in the Senate, Rubio didn’t bother explaining his absence; instead, he took it to the paper for holding him to a standard it had not done for previous Democratic candidates.


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Senator Ted Cruz

​Abuse of the officials – Ted Cruz quickly followed Marco Rubio's lead and accused the debate’s moderators of asking questions meant to create a “cage match” rather than substantive policy questions. However, he spent his allotted time complaining about the liberal media and failed to answer the question posed to him, which was a substantive policy question about his opposition to the debt ceiling deal reached earlier this week.
Dr. Ben Carson

Puck out of bounds – Ben Carson was asked about profiteering healthcare companies charging exorbitant prices for life saving medication. Specifically, he was asked if the government should be involved to control these prices. Carson said that “some people go overboard when it comes to trying to make profits” but then said that “we’re going to have to have a major reduction in the regulatory influence that is going on.” Since these two points seem contradictory, we called a penalty.

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Carly Fiorina

​Icing – Carly Fiorina was asked about her opposition to the creation of an internet sales tax. Her answer was comprehensive, to say the least. She began by talking about how the influence of crony capitalism leads to the consolidation of pharmaceutical companies, Wall Street mergers, and even the Walgreens-Rite Aid buyout. For this reason she opposed the internet sales tax. We didn’t see a connection, so we called her for shooting her puck past the red lines. 
Donald Trump

​Puck out of bounds – Donald Trump was asked about his opposition to Marco Rubio’s program for H-1B visas given to foreign skilled workers. He denied that he had ever held that opinion and instead talked about how he self-funds his campaign and is against SuperPACs. 

​Abuse of the officials – After a commercial break, moderator Betty Quick returned to the issue of Donald Trump opposing Marco Rubio’s H-1B visa policy. Using a quote from his own website, she showed that he had been off base in attacking her and questioning her facts. 
Governor John Kasich

​​Icing – Since the debate took place in Colorado, John Kasich was asked about his opinion on legalizing marijuana. He was firmly against it, but quickly veered off topic to discuss income inequality, the Department of Education, balancing the budget, and wages in Ohio. 
Governor Chris Christie

​​Abuse of the officials – Its on! Chris Christie didn’t want to be left out of the media bashing. A visibly-surprised Christie had this response to a question about recent reports concerning the legality of fantasy football as it pertains to gambling. “Wait a second, we have $19 trillion in debt. We have people out of work. We have ISIS and al Qaeda attacking us. And we’re talking about fantasy football? Can we stop?” It’s a good line to be sure, but our moderators have had a long night, so we called a penalty to help them out.
Governor Mike Huckabee

​​Puck out of bounds – Governor Huckabee was asked for specific steps to reduce income inequality. He responded with a metaphor comparing the size of the federal government to the escaped military blimp that fell to the ground in Pennsylvania today. Then he complained that the bottom 90% of wage earners have stagnant earnings, and that the government shouldn’t pick winners and losers. These three issues were disparate enough that we called the penalty for not answering the question.
Governor Jeb Bush

Penalty Free!
Senator Rand Paul

Penalty Free!