It did not take long for the earlier predictions of the upcoming South Carolina debate to be confirmed. According to a local media report the Peace Center in South Carolina, with an audience capacity of 1,900, will be attended by only the most exclusive party insiders and Republican donors.

[…] Republican National Committee decided not to go with a lottery system. “If we had not had it at the Peace Center we probably would have had more people come, but the Peace Center is the venue that CBS chose,” said Chad Groover, chairman of the Greenville County Republican party. Groover said supporters who work hard for the party will be rewarded tickets. People selected will fill the 1,900 seats that have been made available for the event, according to Groover. Groover said the Republican National Committee gives a lot of tickets to supporters. He said more are then allocated for the state party to distribute among the county chairs. […] Groover said he gave tickets to supporters, including elected officials, who work hard for the party. (link)

As typical for the cocktail class, “work hard for the party” translates to opening checkbooks and demanding influence.

The New Hampshire debate audience was Old School Republicans who cheered Jeb Bush and jeered the ‘next-in-line-jumper’ Marco Rubio. However, South Carolina has already shown their most preferential candidate in the North Charleston debate, where party insiders were majority Rubio supporters. Expect Greenville to be more like the latter than former.

Given the absolute need for young Rubio to regain his viable candidate footing, every possible lean and party indulgence will be apportioned to provide maximum benefit.

Also based on severity of need, Jeb Bush can be easily be expected to continue trying to make his attack approach personal upon the GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. Acutely rehearsed and poll-tested sound bites aimed at defining Donald Trump’s temperament, gruff persona, and generally vulgarian nature.

Jeb will be well aware of the audience and any arrows thrown in the direction of Rubio will be nerf darts to avoid the rehearsed, quick-worded and lane clearing retort. Bush doesn’t have Christie to defend his honor in Greenville.

Rubio will attempt to leverage his freshman senatorial studies, and continue advancing the proposition only he possesses foreign policy experience. Trump would be wise to remind the audience that a weakened America makes concerns of a Syrian invasion force several notches less than on the importance scale.

After all, either we have a country, or we don’t; and nation building in Libya is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things if more Boeing’s move to China.

But Rubio will most certainly be advised to go on offense against Trump, because, as unbelievably as it might seem to most, young Marco needs to remove the optic of Jeb as *cough* strongman against the Donald.

Somewhere in there will be the opportunity for Trump to leverage the missing Christie and emphasize the remaining memory of the 25 second DC talking-point rehearsal which plays well for the Sunday talks but does little to solve any significant crisis. After all, despite the pearl-clutching annoyance conveyed within the truth – it still remains truthful to point it out.

Kasich has quadrupled down on the nice-uncle John strategy, and continued throughout the week to say his heart will lead his building tender-sensibilities coalition. Prior banker status and angry-man role not withstanding. Dear John has assured a national audience of his intent to listen more to the suffering masses and internalize their anxieties. A new era of ‘super-duper-participation-trophies-for-all’ a possible platform plank, no splinters of course.

Of course senator Baal Cruz will evoke passages of the constitution, decry a borderless country he previously supported, generally reverse all of his prior positions, and challenge Marco Rubio with who can bomb North Korea or Syria the fastest. Sitting on the edge of the stage playing with the kids is a great optic during commercials, and helps avoid the fact none of his My Dear Friends on the stage wants to be anywhere near the guy. Juan is the loneliest number….

The attacks on candidate Trump are transparent: “Heartless Eminent Domain” and mean businessman stuff from Bush. “Abortion and other constitutionally important social issues” from Cruz. Claims of “Single-Payer” healthcare advocacy from both. All of which can be swatted away with a blend of policy and linguistic kill-shots.

Only one person can arrive at the White House without any IOU’s waiting on the oval office desk. Only one candidate can claim their Super-PAC is the American people. Only one candidate can point out the Crony-Capitalism of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the flaws with Trans-Pacific Trade, shipping jobs and manufacturing overseas etc.

Only one candidate can successfully talk about the border wall being paid by Mexico who are now, more than ever, dependent on U.S. dollar remittances ($25B) than their entire energy sector including oil development ($23.5B). Yeah, Mexico will pay for the wall, those recently released statistics provide just the leverage Trump was talking about.

Only one candidate can talk about saving Social Security and Medicare through expansive domestic economic growth, and a change in the U.S. economic model to take advantage of our keen innovation, entrepreneurship and domestic resource development.

Only one remaining candidate has actually created anything, built anything, or even employed anyone. Only one candidate has put his own money, created wealth, on the line to succeed or fail, and not spent his life dependent on exploiting the money of the U.S. taxpayer.

And hopefully today the polls will come out before noon which will show Dr. Carson able to stand on the stage with everyone else. […] To be included, polls must be conducted and released to the public before 12 p.m. ET on Feb. 12, 2016. – link –

Lastly, seeing this earlier last night…:

RT @AFLCIO That terrible moment you hear your job is going to Mexico. Why we need to #StopTPP pic.twitter.com/N81AinANZu — Teamsters (@Teamsters) February 11, 2016

Many interests within the body politic continue to tell us all there’s a necessary dividing line between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, progressives or constitutionalists. Indeed, if you were to force yourself to watch any number of hours of current news punditry you’d probably walk away with the same understanding.

However, I come here today not to showcase our difference but rather to highlight our common cause.

Throughout the course of our lives you and I have each found value in our mutual interests; each serving the other with a clear understanding that we both can benefit from a relationship based on mutual respect and appreciation for the value of labor.

In a larger sense there is a connection that binds us beyond the threads which connect your well-earned individual federation patch to your jacket. Each person here today is a single member of a larger construct aimed to benefit the group by raising the tides of all ships with as much equality as possible.

However, beneath the patches and affiliations there is a larger connective tissue; a connection which flows deeper than economics; a connection that exists larger than the value of our labor; a patriotic connection which binds us all as – Americans.

In a recent presidential debate my friend, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, interrupted an exchange on the stage.

Chris asked a question to the larger audience targeted to draw attention to the economics of an unemployed 50-year-old construction worker; and what positions each candidate carried to reconcile the concern amid the middle-class family.

In essence Governor Christie was saying “what about you guys”.

Unfortunately, a 30 second soundbite doesn’t quite fit the bill for a decent response. However, as the only person on the stage who is actively engaged to improve the life of a 50-year-old construction worker, I found a particular level of irony amid the chattering class who seek to tell us, you and me, how to get it done.

No-one needs to tell us, those of us here today, how to get it done. We know how to get it done.

We know full well how to unleash the spirit of labor and determination evidenced within this room. This room is filled with the best git-r-done assembly in the history of modern economic enterprise.

The problem is not within the “getting”.

The problems lies within the “getting out of the way”.

Each of you here today know exactly what it means to work with and within a system of bureaucratic double-speak filled with words, and perhaps filled with learning, yet short on knowledge for how exactly to “get it done”.

How many of you have to deal with a little worn hard hat who draws and designates the best of plans, only to find out between the drawing board and the actual construction the blades of the turbine miss the size of the housing by more than six inches.

From my perspective any average hard-working person inside this room could eat every one of these politicians’ lunches, all of them. And if they want to go down a superiority path… well, they are going to dead end in a place where that stuff is just plain useless; because eventually you’ve got to get it done.

Allow me to prove our point:

Florida Power and Light won the prestigious International Edward Demming award for excellence in multi-platform engineering and efficiency superiority.

Now, those field engineers didn’t blow every Chinese, Japanese and European PhD intellectual out of the water with slide rules, CAD programs and engineering acumen. They did it with hard hats and dirty fingernails.

Because they lost the award, the Japanese spent 6 months studying FPL and later published a 1,000 page dissertation essentially saying FPL “wasn’t really good, they were just lucky”…..

FP & L field leadership laughed, took out markers and wrote on the back of their hard hats: “WE’RE NOT GOOD, WE’RE RUCKY”….

When every single Kuwaiti oil field was blown up by Saddam Hussein, they said it would take 5 years to extinguish the fires, cap them all off and restart their oil pumping industry. The Kuwaitis and Saudis called Texans, Americans, our people, who had them all capped and back in working order in 8 months.

We are a nation that knows how to get stuff done.

When a group of Northern Chile mine workers were trapped two miles underground, they said no-one could save them. Who did they call for help? A bunch of hick miners, Americans, our people from USA coal country who went down there, worked on the fly, engineered the rescue equipment on site, and saved everyone of them….

That’s our America. That is the connective tissue that binds us and makes us more powerful and consequential than any nation on earth.

That spirit is what runs through our DNA; that spirit is what’s being held back; that ability is what we need to unleash and use to bring back our economic engine and manufacturing base.

That spirit is what’s going to keep our 50-year-old construction workers employed and able to provide a strong and stable life for our families.

That, my friends, my brothers and sisters, is why I’m here today asking for your help in restarting this engine.

When any business or industry fails to show you their respect and appreciation for the value of your labor, you have a tool to force those in ownership and management to the table of recognition.

When any business refuses to properly assign respectful valuation to your efforts, you have a process to push-back.

That tool, and that push-back, in its ultimate form is a collective strike against those who refuse to properly value you, respect your labor, and reward your efforts.

Within any strike, you form a line – a position not to be crossed. A gathering of brothers and sisters united in common cause to force the enterprise from a position of self-interest and into a position of mutual benefit. You block anyone from crossing that line and compromising your position.

In many large and consequential ways that reason you cast a picket line is why I have demanded a wall, a barrier, an unfortunate -but necessary- picket-line-of-sorts, on our southern border.

What you seek to protect with the formation of your economic boundary is a line in the sand; so too do I wish to protect another common interest with the formation of a similar common boundary. My interest is this great country.

Either we have a country, or we do not. It really is that simple.

Either being an American means something, or it does not. I believe it does.

I am here today, in front of you, to ask you to support me as a candidate for President of The United States, and I am also here to make a pledge to you.

Regardless of whether you join me on that picket line, I will not stop fighting for you. I will not stop fighting for you, because something much more important than the patch on our national jacket connects us.

We are a family of Americans.

We will always share a common cause.

I hope you will join me.

God bless you and your families and may God continue to bless the United States of America.