I know, I know — bullshit horse race story from the most disreputable pack of lame hacks in the Beltway, and you’ve got more important policy-related considerations to weigh in your beautiful mind, but this story is too delicious NOT to share:
Campaigns erupt over greenrooms at third GOP debate
Aides to Chris Christie and Rand Paul complain their work spaces look like bathrooms.During a tense 30-minute meeting at the Coors Event Center, which was described by three sources present, several lower-polling campaigns lashed out at the RNC. They accused the committee of allotting them less-than-hospitable greenroom spaces while unfairly giving lavish ones to higher-polling candidates, such as Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
The drama began Tuesday afternoon as RNC officials led campaigns on a walk-through of the debate site. After touring the stage, candidates got a peek at what their greenrooms looked like.
Trump was granted a spacious room, complete with plush chairs and a flat-screen TV. Marco Rubio got a theater-type room, packed with leather seats for him and his team of aides. Carly Fiorina’s room had a Jacuzzi.
Then there was Chris Christie, whose small space was dominated by a toilet. So was Rand Paul’s.
[snip]“This is ridiculous,” fumed Christie’s campaign manager, Ken McKay. “We’re in a restroom.”
Paul’s team also piped in, with one adviser, Chris LaCivita, demanding that something be done to remedy the situation.
Here are the spaces in question, Chez Trump on the left and Paul Villa on the right:
Santorum, Jindal, Pataki and Graham couldn’t be reached for comment as the Port-O-Let, dumpster, packing crate and sewer drain in which they were housed lacked phone service and Internet access….
Cervantes
Tackiness all around.
MomSense
If there were justice in this world, they would be in well used port a potties tipped over door side down.
Bobby Thomson
As I said below, they should feel lucky to be invited.
EBT
Really though, that sounds about right for Paul’s campaign. I know the clown car media circus is good money for the broadcaster, but how much name recognition can someone circling the drain at under 3% really get? Does Paul even have a book to hawk?
Iowa Old Lady
Nobody likes a whiner.
Steeplejack
Packing crate? Sheer luxury! Jim Webb had a rain-damaged cardboard refrigerator box at the Democratic debate, and he had to bring it himself.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I love this. Are they angry because they don’t get, or precisely because they do get, that this is Reince et al’s way of telling them to fold their fucking tents and get the fuck out of the way?
Be happy it’s the not two-holer you and that hate-fueled bullyboy deserve.
BGinCHI
Politico, you magnificent bastards.
Lee Rudolph
I see what you did there.
Punchy
And never again will the words “Chris Christie” and “small space” ever be paired together again.
And “dominated by a toilet” perfectly describes the way Trump will trash Christie’s views.
catclub
That is strange.
BGinCHI
@Iowa Old Lady: In the GOP everyone likes whiners and victims. As long as they are rich.
MattF
In a restroom, but not actually in the toilet. Or in the commode, I should say.
Roger Moore
Coffee is for closers. On a more serious note, it’s a good bet that the RNC is just going with what’s available. How many event centers have 15 green rooms, much less 15 green rooms that are exactly equally nice? The RNC is scrambling to find enough space for everyone, and some of the candidates at the kiddie table are going to get shit facilities (literally!) because that’s what’s they have.
Jeffro
So skip the debate then, Christie & Paul…since you have so much leverage here…make the bastards pay by withholding your magnificent presences.
Unbelievable.
BGinCHI
Rand Paul added, “When Jefferson crossed the Delaware to fight the Viet Cong he did not have to deal with this kind of thing.”
Matt McIrvin
@BGinCHI: I’ve been enjoying his “you think you’re so smart” response to being called on that stuff.
Brachiator
@catclub: RE: Carly Fiorina’s room had a Jacuzzi.
She used to play football for UCLA.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/sad-news–ucla-qb-josh-rosen-no-longer-has-a-hot-tub-in-his-dorm-152800059.html
Face
What the hell are they using greenrooms for, anyways? Debate prep, really? Or is that where the orgies are supposed to commence, and Paul doesn’t believe he’s agile enough to tap an escort over the loo?
BGinCHI
Doesn’t the free market offer nearby lavish hotel rooms or well-equipped buses they could purchase?
It’s hard when the “free stuff” just isn’t enough, isn’t it.
Assholes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub: soemtihng to do with sports ball events taking place at this events center? Or something the Coors family intended for their personal use?
I had a brief spasm of enemy-of-my-enemy affection for the Randling when he called CC the bully from New Jersey yesterday, about The Pot.
Amir Khalid
Opening themselves up to accusations of favouritism toward the “stronger” candidates was just plain stupid of the RNC. What would it have hurt to provide, for just one night, green rooms of the same size to everyone?
BGinCHI
@Matt McIrvin: I like his quote where he complains that these eggheads are just looking stuff up in books to contradict him.
As if they are performing a magic trick.
Eric U.
I worked in a manufacturing plant where I needed an office, but there was no room for me in the main office. So I set up in an unused bathroom. Really wasn’t that bad, and I didn’t spend much time in there anyway
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: enemy-of-my-enemy violations of Reagan’s 11th commandment have been the best part of the republican primary so far. That, and Trump exposing the republican base for the horrible people that they are
BGinCHI
@Amir Khalid: It would have hurt Jesus, according to the RNC.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Republicans stand for equal opportunity, not equal outcome.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Is it wrong that I’m laughing? Loudly, I should add. The dog looked up, concerned.
dmsilev
@BGinCHI: Generally, one attempts to pipe shit _out_ of a restroom, not _in_.
NonyNony
@catclub:
Take a look at the photos in the linked article (actually in the tweets in the linked article) – Fiorina’s room is clearly a sports medicine examination room. There’s a hot tub in there for therapy reasons. Paul’s room looks like a private examination room. Rubio’s might be the room where the coach shows plays on the big screen to the players.
Basically they’re in a sports facility and being stuffed into the nooks and crannies of the facility. Trump’s green room area looks like it might be a private box though – or possibly a lobby? Either way it looks like the RNC gave one of the better ones to him. I assume because they know how much noise he’ll make if they tried to stick him into a bathroom (and that people would listen and care about it).
greennotGreen
Republicans just don’t get the concept of equality.
I have chaired two very small conventions. When looking for a site (which is done two years in advance,) we don’t choose a hotel that doesn’t have enough beds or enough ballrooms. Now, considering the RNC probably wasn’t expecting the gross of candidates they have, they probably weren’t looking for a gross of green rooms. That being said, I’m not sure allotting the space in such an egregiously inequitable manner was the best solution, but it is the one that fits with their general ethos.
benw
Actually, she said she saw a hot tub with “her own eyes”, but it turned out that it really was just a toilet.
replicnt6
@Steeplejack:
And he was thankful to have it!
Amir Khalid
@Brachiator:
Yes, but was Carly a quarterback?
Cervantes
@BGinCHI:
No one likes pedants.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@benw: HAH!
Good point, after Walker and up till late last week I’m sure they were expecting to be down to half a dozen at most at this point.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
Kudos to you for the Four Yorkshiremen reference.
FourTen
@Steeplejack: Decadence! Why Lincoln Chaffe got prepared under a torn plastic tarp while standing in kneed deep sewer runoff!
Ohio Mom
In the olden days the debates were coordinated and sponsored by the League of Women Voters, who say their responsibility as being for the voters, not the candidates. I don’t remember exactly why they stopped, something to do with ridiculous demands by one or both parties. Looks like no one’s behavior, at least on the Republican side, has improved since.
jl
Thanks. I found the story hilarious, though not sure why.
If the pic is any indication, Paul and Christie get a powder room and restroom, which seems pretty swank to me. Or, in the pic to the left, is the little room with the head actually one of their green rooms and the powder room (or whatever it is outside) somebody else’s green room?
Since the GOP believes in unregulated dog eat dog capitalism, they should make the campaigns bid for their green rooms. That would produce a BS scandal story about Jeb?: he fires people put is paying $ through the nose for a damn green room, and I think a story like would increase our social welfare.
I’m skipping the GOP debate tonight. Heard it was about economics, and will be bad for my blood pressure to listen to the damn thing. And life is short.
The next Dem debate will more like a real debate with enough time for HRC and Sanders to discuss their positions and philosophies with adequate length. I thought that even though both did very well at the first debate, both showed some serious weaknesses and am curious how they do at the second. So, I’ll spend my time on that one.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, until she got benched for poor performance.
benw
@Cervantes: To be precise, not many people like pedants, but some do.
srv
If you’re not classy like Trump, why do you need classy gigs?
Christie always looks constipated – someone was just trying to be helpful.
mtiffany
The candidates with higher polls get better accommodations; isn’t that how the “free market” is supposed to work in a capitalist society? Are these guys suddenly communists, thinking that they should be rewarded with equal accommodations to people who have obviously worked harder to be popular? Filthy moochers.
Betty Cracker
@jl: I’ll be watching the World Series, but I won’t be able to resist catching at least part of the clown show on a second screen. I’m sure it will annoy my husband, who takes baseball very seriously indeed.
Cervantes
@benw:
Until they don’t.
jl
@Ohio Mom: I think both major parties were frustrated by difficulty of rigging the debates when third parties organized it. They had a hard time controlling how much substance and obvious facts would be injected into the debate and the candidates would have to deal with.
The major parties preferred the debates to be forum for spouting heavily massaged talking points. I don’t think they understood that they would be contending for control with just the media, and the difficulty of controlling what the media did out of their concern for ratings and profits.
And the GOP went nuts of course, in trying to turn them into a complete fraud, more like an extended infomercial for their BS than a real debate. We are seeing where that road leads in the current deranged GOP shit show of a primary.
MomSense
@BGinCHI:
“Sixty-four percent of internet quotes are misattributed” – Abraham Lincoln
Dork
@Amir Khalid: Nope. She played Tight End.
benw
@mtiffany: It seems like any half decent campaign manager could have easily turned the lesser accommodations into a scrappy underdog narrative for their candidate at this debate. Instead they complain. Moochers AND whiners.
BGinCHI
@MomSense: What about the other 64%?
Goblue72
@jl: Teaconomics? So basically tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts?
peach flavored shampoo
I think people are so familiar with shit coming out of his mouth, they probably figured it comes out the other end, too.
J.D. Rhoades
@BGinCHI:
I’ve had wingnuts reply to my attempts to actually interject facts into debates with a sneer that “anyone can look stuff up on Google.”
jl
@Betty Cracker: I’m concerned about your plan. This is a GOP debate on economics so it is going to be nothing but confused nonsense and fantasy. You will have to spend a few days reading up on economic current events to unconfuse yourself and repair your connection to reality.
Why don’t you turn the sound off for the GOP debate and make up their lines yourself. Might be some good yuks in that.
MomSense
@BGinCHI:
Sinclair Lewis
Tom
@BGinCHI: In his defense, ‘looking stuff up’ seems like magic to him.
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid: I’m sure they fear the wrath of Christie’s two percent.
MomSense
I bought a bottle of red wine for the debate tonight. Hope it’s enough.
Jeffro
@MomSense:,
Can I just say how much I’m loving this thread on a rainy Wednesday?
RSA
“At least your restroom is closed to the public!” returned Jindal’s campaign manager.
Tim F.
Seems like a perfect opportunity for Chris Christie. Let’s see Trump hold it onstage for two hours after finding out the bathroom door is locked. Traffic problems, motherfucker.
BGinCHI
@MomSense: Oh, now I understand.
jl
After thinking about it, I advise people to skip the debate unless they feel it is their public duty to master all GOP lies and misinformation. This can be a time consuming and hazardous job, probably best left to campaign professionals who are prepared for the challenge.
I don’t want to seem cynical, but reactionaries and hacks are blatant about spinning fantasies and fake alternative histories.
Recently watched some pundit from Reason talk about what t total disaster the lefty French government policies were, and how they blew up in their faces so quickly, they were all running away from them, and they were facing total extinction in recent elections.
It didn’t sound quite right to me, and after checking, it was all made up BS.
I am just expressing concern for my fellow BJ commenters’ precious mental health. Think of what you are doing to yourselves. Would you make your dog or cat or ant farm suffer through a similar experience. No, you would not.
geg6
@jl:
I’m with you, jl. My very healthy 58-year-old heart will no longer be so if I watch those idiots opining about how we all need to be eating tire rims and anthrax so the MOUs can piss on our heads in the glorious trickle down world they will all usher in after their magnificent victory over the Hildebeest.
Shantanu Saha
So for this debate they literally have penthouses and outhouses for the candidates.
BGinCHI
@Tom: How many libertarians does it take to look up a quote?
Bobby Thomson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: there’s no reason they couldn’t be, other than trying to keep Kasich alive. His pathetic campaign is keeping others going because they have to lower the bar for him.
But I don’t see the nomination going to someone other than Trump Carson Cruz Rubio Bush Fiorina (and including Fiorina is charity). The others have had plenty of opportunities to catch on. They haven’t and won’t.
Amir Khalid
If there wasn’t space to provide 15 (fifteen!) green rooms that were more or less the same, maybe the debate organisers could have provided each candidate a trailer, parked in a secured area. Still not perfect, but more equitable.
jl
@Tim F.: It is not even clear that Trump has a bathroom in his big suite. I don’t see a head in the pic. Maybe he has to go down the hall. So your have a reasonable concern.
Me I’d rather be able to take a dump or a piss on short notice before the circus starts, instead of having some dumb TV screen.
Watch out Donald, it’s a trap!
Bobby Thomson
@benw: lol
geg6
@MomSense:
Someone would have to get me a whole barrel in order to get me to watch tonight. Thankfully, I have to work. I have a financial aid night at 7pm at a local high school. I usually hate doing it at this particular high school because they always want me to start later than I do at other schools because they have a mini college fair first. I probably won’t make it home until after 9pm. Which means I’ll be watching the episode of Survivor I recorded earlier in the evening after I get home and can pretend that none of it is happening.
jl
@geg6: I’ll check tomorrow to see if Jeb? repeats his slam dunk argument for this tax plan, which is both sound on principle and political appeal:
“You have to let the big dogs eat.”
Amir Khalid
@jl:
I am reminded of Bill Wyman’s advice for young bass players: always go to the toilet before you go on.
Brachiator
@BGinCHI:
None. The invisible hand of the free market performs all searches for libertarians.
geg6
@jl:
Thank you. I appreciate it. You know, because stuff happens.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: If you don’t have to share, one bottle might be enough. Wouldn’t hurt to secure a backup….
benw
@jl: So you guys are saying it will *literally* be a pissing contest during this debate?
MomSense
@geg6:
It is a farce and all their economic plans are frauds but the pundits will discuss it as if it is a normal event.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Maybe I should go for something with a higher alcohol content.
joes527
Please oh please tell me that the rooms are something like this
jl
I read that CNBC isn’t making it available to public, either have to be a subscriber or sign up for a fee trial (and no way I am doing that).
Whew. Temptation to cheat on my promise to myself removed. What a relief.
Germy Shoemangler
But isn’t this who they are? I’ve seen this behavior in the corporate world, where the Boss treats himself to a large office with many extra comforts, while those immediately below him have smaller offices, not as fancy, and then the rest of us get tiny hamster wheels to work in. Isn’t this their philosophy? Privilege?
Danack
This end is my favourite bit:
aka ‘forget this’ – nsfw text/audio.
Ripley
Second prize is a set of steak knives.
NonyNony
@geg6:
There’s no point in watching tonight. The questions will be inane, the responses worse. The moderators will be trying to gin up fights between the candidates to make something ratings-worthy happen and these will be pointless and not nearly as entertaining as they should be. Jeb will probably bring up his brother again and dare Trump to slam W in front of a Republican loyalist audience instead of the more mixed audience he has on the Twitters. Trump will back down and Jeb will look smug about it.
If anything more exciting than that happens I’ll read about it tomorrow. But I think that’s pretty much the debate summed up hours before it starts.
Germy Shoemangler
Pataki probably got a thumb drive containing a jpeg of a green room.
Germy Shoemangler
@NonyNony:
I wonder how much of the base watches the same way race car fans watch their spectacles… cheering their driver, but quietly hoping for a fiery crash.
Emma
Trump: tries for class but ends up a bit chav. Paul: just plain manky.
(Yes, I’ve been watching a lot of Brit tv. Why do you ask?)
sharl
@MomSense: I’ve learned a lot more about Abraham Lincoln since I started following twitter.
Keith P.
Note found on Chris Christie’s greenroom door: “Shitter’s full”
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
Only one, if it’s a quote from Ayn Rand or Robert Heinlein.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Since when have the Republicans cared about equitable division of resources?
mtiffany
@jl:
If there’s not an app for that, there sure as hell should be.
benw
@Germy Shoemangler: infected with malware, too.
Ryan
Look at the Don’s green room. It’s youuuuge, and spacious, but what, no gold plated surfaces. Not classy!
amk
so no room for dumbay3 then?
MomSense
@sharl:
HAHAHA!
JPL
The Koch brothers said that if Rand had only worked harder, he could have nicer accommodations.
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
One of the labs near me recently discarded an empty 20 liter 200 proof ethanol container. While it was sold for lab use, it was USP grade and said it was kosher, so it was apparently safe for human consumption. I think that’s the kind of container you’d need for a Republican debate watching party.
Betty Cracker
@Germy Shoemangler: My GOP debate viewing is all about the crashes.
jl
@mtiffany: Someone might make a good buck out of simulcasting the visual feed and do some improve for audio. Kind of a Science Fiction Theatre thing. Probably have to get a good deal on the broadcast rights.
Anyway, early signs of what a mess it will be:
Trump Predicts ‘Very Unfair Debate’
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-predict-unfair-debate
Germy Shoemangler
@mtiffany:
In a week or so, the “bad lip reading” folks will have something up on youtube.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
RE: How many libertarians does it take to look up a quote?
True libertarians don’t have to look up Ayn Rand quotes. They’ve got them all memorized.
PurpleGirl
Santorum, Jindal, Pataki and Graham couldn’t be reached for comment as the Port-O-Let, dumpster, packing crate and sewer drain in which they were housed lacked phone service and Internet access….
Awww, poor babies. Love the description of the lesser spaces, Betty. But as regards Rand Paul and Chris Christy… Awww, poor babies.
When my non-profit held a benefit Read-Aloud the greenrooms our celebrities stayed in were one large space with folding chairs. You know, I don’t remember anyone complaining about it, even such people as Vanessa Redgrave or Ben Stiller. We’d have tables with bottled water for them, I think we had some snacks. But the space were just space where the readers waited for their turn on stage.
jl
@jl: I meant ‘Mystery Science Theatre’.
@Germy Shoemangler: Thanks. I’ll watch for it.
Also, when they do a debate focused on foreign policy, they should make the candidates fight for their greenrooms. Naked death cage elimination bout, all jump in together and last one in the ring gets the big suite with head, shower and sauna and hi def big screen TV with p 0 r n * s (Edit: sorry, I meant NFL videos and patriotic marches).
mtiffany
@BGinCHI:
None. They don’t have to look anything up because only gold is real money and the government is going to take away your medicare and the United Nations is sending in their troops on black helicopters to take away your guns so they can mutilate your cattle and then force you to get gay married and then take away all your dollars, which are not real monies anyways, and replace them with the Amero (which is also not real monies because it is not golds or silvers) which will be the new currency of the North American Union which is just a front for Agenda 21 and the New World Order so that they can forcibly vaccinate your children to give them autism and vaccinate you to make you sterile because shapeshifting Lizard People live in Hollow Earth but they are originally from Altair IV. Benghazi!
TG Chicago
Hmmm, one could almost believe the RNC is trying to send a message to some of the no-hope grifters.
That said, Trump and Carson are no-hope grifters, but I guess they’re polling too well to be sent this particular message. So far.
Cckids
@Amir Khalid:
Plus, isn’t it at a college? Couldn’t they just give everyone a classroom & call it done?
Just Some Fuckhead
@jl: When Trump makes poopie, it’s yooooooooooge. Bigger and better than everyone’s. A-mazing.
Germy Shoemangler
@Just Some Fuckhead:
He doesn’t make poopie, he makes confetti and party favors.
brantl
I can’t tell you just how poetically just I find this, words aren’t that intense.
mtiffany
@Amir Khalid:
But then the question becomes where would they get the money to muck out the trailers afterwards? That’s a hell of a lot of manure…
dogwood
@benw:
Any half decent campaign manger would keep his and his candidates mouth shut. Nobody gives a damn about where the candidates hole up with their advisors before a debate. The fact that candidates whine publicly about crap like this is pretty telling. Crappy green rooms are the least of the indignities presidential candidates have to endure. You aren’t entitled to be treated like a president until you earn the office. Lucky for the permanent White House staff, they’ll never have to work for Chris Christie. I can only imagine the horror if you’ve been keeping house for George and Laura and Barack and Michelle for 16 years and the Christies suddenly move in. He not a demanding boss; he a bully.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@MomSense:
It won’t be if you’re playing a drinking game.
yodecat
Ye gods! You can’t make this stuff up!
SiubhanDuinne
@jl:
On the remote chance that you missed what BLR did to the first GOP debate, enjoy:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ufGlBv8Z3NU
SiubhanDuinne
@mtiffany:
Divert the flow of the Colorado River?
Ian
“Trump was granted a spacious room…”
I believe they misspelled yoooooge.
chopper
now you know how all the people in the audience feel.
Another Holocene Human
@BGinCHI: What could be more ruggedly individualistic than just cold making shit up?
Ksmiami
@Bobby Thomson: I think there’s a safe bet Romney gets a last minute opportunity. I mean the whole slate is just just err I have no words
John
@MomSense: I believe that’s four score and seven percent of internet quotes are misattributed.
MomSense
@John:
;)
NorthLeft12
How dense can you get? Why exactly do you think you [Christie, Rand, etc.] are getting such shitty accommodations? What maroons. This is exactly how Republicans believe US society should be; winners get everything and everyone else gets the scraps.
J R in WV
@Roger Moore:
Technically, it’s very difficult to provide pure ethanol at 200 proof, because it is hygroscopic, and absorbs humidity from the ambient atmosphere down to about 97% or 194 proof.
But still funny!
J R in WV
Help! I’m in moderation, for spelling ethan-ol correctly, I think…
mai naem mobile
I know there’s a shytload of candidates but you would think there would be plenty of luxury boxes, sports’ team rooms and rooms normally set up for concerts etc. for the candidates. I don’t think these whiners should be whining for bad optics but really the happy hour candidates should be getting cubicles and the others, small offices.
FlipYrWhig
@J R in WV: I think it was for spelling amβient correctly, because it contains the name of a med sold on the black market.
slag
If only the Republican penchant for wealth redistribution went in any other direction than themselves.
maya
Why would they want green rooms? Shouldn’t they all be in rubber rooms?
Tommy T
Actually you’ve gotta love the baby changing table in Christie and Paul’s “greenrooms”.
Not a very subtle message, is it?