{"id":12251,"date":"2011-12-02T18:11:04","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T23:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=12251"},"modified":"2011-12-02T18:12:09","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T23:12:09","slug":"trump-to-moderate-gop-debate-in-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/12251\/trump-to-moderate-gop-debate-in-iowa\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump to Moderate GOP Debate in Iowa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier today <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsmax.com\/Pages\/IONSignup.aspx?PROMO_CODE=DA1E-1\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Newsmax<\/em><\/a> invited the main Republican candidates to a December 27<sup>th<\/sup> debate in Des Moines, IA.\u00a0 One catch: it will be moderated by Donald Trump.\u00a0 Somehow a &#8220;moderate&#8221; Donald Trump doesn&#8217;t seem possible.<\/p>\n<p>In a way it\u2019s fitting that <a href=\"http:\/\/thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/12\/02\/trump-to-moderate-republican-debate\/\" target=\"_blank\">Trump<\/a>, erstwhile Republican presidential candidate, will be preside over what may be the final GOP debate before the January 3, 2012 Iowa caucuses.\u00a0 Trump started the anti-Romney conservative popularity surges that later carried Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Newt Gingrich to prominence.<\/p>\n<p>But for all his popularity, the choice of Trump is a bit curious since he\u2019s recently admitted to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/johncassidy\/2011\/11\/the-conservative-dilemma.html\" target=\"_blank\">thinking about running for president again<\/a> \u2013 this time on a third party ticket.\u00a0 While the venue and media exposure may preclude candidates from staying away, I would be wary of taking questions from a guy who could use his moderator\u2019s role to pin down potential rivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier today Newsmax invited the main Republican candidates to a December 27th debate in Des Moines, IA.\u00a0 One catch: it will be moderated by Donald Trump.\u00a0 Somehow a &#8220;moderate&#8221; Donald Trump doesn&#8217;t seem possible. In a way it\u2019s fitting that Trump, erstwhile Republican presidential candidate, will be preside over what may be the final GOP [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2398,2391,2860,2725,2066,869,838],"class_list":["post-12251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2012-presidential-campaign","tag-donald-trump","tag-herman-cain","tag-iowa","tag-michele-bachmann","tag-newt-gingrich","tag-rick-perry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12251"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12256,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251\/revisions\/12256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}