The thrill goes to greenville


​WHAT: @Ballot_ball will be live-tweeting the 9th Republican Presidential debate

WHERE: Greenville, South Carolina on CBS

WHEN: 9 pm ET on February 13, 2016 
February 13, 2016 - The candidate pool has dropped from 17 to only 7. Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore was not invited to tonight's debate due to his low poll numbers and Donald Trump is riding high after a large primary win in New Hampshire.

As always, Ballotball.com is going to play referee. We aren’t going to pick a winner—you, the voter, should decide that for yourself. What we WILL do is help keep the bout civil by throwing flags and calling penalties in real time. So, tune in live on Thursday night, and check back with us on Friday to find out who was penalized the most.

The candidates

Donald Trump

Current Delegates: 17 (1,237 needed to win nomination)
1%
Ted Cruz

​Current Delegates: 11
0%
Marco Rubio

Current Delegates: 10
0%
John Kasich

Current Delegates: 5
0%
Jeb Bush

​Current Delegates: 4
0%
Dr. Ben Carson

​Current Delegates: 3
0%

The Penalties

Tonight's debate rules are somewhere between a basketball game and a spelling bee...

Candidates can receive a foul for the following infractions:
 
  • Failing to answer a question
This one is pretty self explanatory. Candidates might have a good reason to avoid the question, but this is a debate and if you're not here to answer the questions, then it's just a televised press conference. 
 
  • Getting way too ahead of themselves by turning a question about one subject into a completely different question about a completely different subject.
For instance, in an earlier debate, Lindsey Graham was asked about his opinion on the right of bakers to refuse to cater a gay wedding. He responded: "Whether you're the wedding cake baker or the gay couple or the Baptist preacher, radical Islam would kill you all if they could."
 
  • Candidates can receive a technical foul by comparing their opponents to the Nazis.
​​This rule might be controversial due to the innumerable times Donald Trump's opponents have compared his xenophobic policies to Nazism. However, going back to the first debate, we, at Ballotball, have held a zero-tolerance policy towards Nazi comparisons. We flagged Lindsey Graham for comparing ISIL to the Nazis, and we were watching Governor Mike Huckabee closely after he compared President Obama to the Nazis after he agreed to the Iran nuclear deal (this didn't happen during a debate, so no penalty was issued). The reason for this rule is threefold:
  1. Nazi comparisons are lazy. If you'd like to compare Donald Trump's ban on Muslims entering the country to a historical precedent, why not try McCarthyism, or the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, or the Jim Crow south? Instead, people always grab the low-hanging fruit of the Nazis to make their point.
  2. Nazi comparisons ignore the fact that there are still Nazi parties alive and well in many countries. They have not receded to the dustbin of history and currently have at least one member sitting on the European Parliament. 
  3. This is a debate. And nothing shuts down a debate faster than a Nazi comparison. It is our strong opinion that such comparisons send all parties to the barricades and prevent anyone from actually communicating. Disagree strongly, and make your case the best you can, but leave the Nazi metaphors at home, please.