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Live Coverage Of The First Republican Debate
At the end of the opening round of questions, there have already been more interruptions (Paul of Trump, Trump of moderator) than in the entire JV debate. No assault or battery yet, but after that question on independent runs, you know they’re all thinking about it.
John Kasich just discussed how prisons are being used as ersatz drug-treatment facilities. Criminal justice reform being raised at all in this debate is a really big deal. The U.S. leads the planet in incarceration, but it wasn’t so long ago that a politician suggesting any whiff of reform ran the risk of being slapped with a “soft-on-crime” scarlet letter.
And there is actual bipartisan reform brewing in Washington: Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) are sponsoring a bill in the House, and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) one in the Senate, that would limit mandatory minimum sentences, broaden the use of probation, and increase judges’ discretion in sentencing drug offenders. But insofar as any of the candidates are interested in getting U.S. incarceration rates in line internationally, it’s going to take a lot more than that.
Nevertheless, the criminal justice conversation has shifted tectonically since this debate in 1988, for example, where Michael Dukakis urged “a real war, not a phony war, against drugs”:
Q:What’s the over/under on Cavs comparisons to a participant? — Dylan Z Gioia
A:Here’s the best statistical comparison between the Cavaliers and the GOP debate lineup I can think of: lining up the distribution of the candidates’ most recent RealClearPolitics polling average against the Cavs’ Value Over Replacement Player ratings compiled during the 2014-15 regular season:
