Hopefully you weren’t late for the Voters First Presidential Forum (#votersfirst), which was held at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire Monday night and televised and streamed on C-SPAN.
Candidates enter the forum #VotersFirstForum http://t.co/uN8A3WHBGL
— Staci DaSilva (@StaciDaSilva) August 3, 2015
Not that it was a surprise, but C-SPAN’s event was relatively free of fireworks, particularly in the absence of candidate Donald Trump.
Fun fact: Trump is not showing up to the #VotersFirst forum because a newspaper co-sponsoring it wrote an editorial he took offense to.
— Shannon R (@Hokuboku) August 3, 2015
Why can't @FoxNews adopt @cspan's format for the debate? Conversational, intelligent, no shenanigans, no Trump…it's perfect. #VotersFirst
— Suzy Morgan (@ProducerSusan) August 3, 2015
Donald Trump should bust through the wall of this #VotersFirst like a big orange Kool-Aid man. #OhYeaahh!
— Jeremy Newberger (@jeremynewberger) August 3, 2015
It was a refreshing format, in which each candidate was introduced and given just a few minutes alone on stage with the moderator to answer questions. (Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio appeared remotely due to tonight’s Senate vote to defund Planned Parenthood.)
There were some mild pyrotechnics from Sen. Lindsey Graham, but they certainly enflamed Krystal Ball, formerly of MSNBC’s “The Cycle.”
Wow. @LindseyGrahamSC says since Bill lied about Monica, @HillaryClinton is lying abt Keystone. What??? Disgusting attack. #VotersFirst
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) August 3, 2015
What? The Clintons lie?
I can't believe @LindseyGrahamSC just attacked @HillaryClinton bc of Bill's affair. It was a nasty, sexist attack. #VotersFirst
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) August 3, 2015
Apparently @LindseyGrahamSC decided he needs to get in the game of saying the most obnoxious things possible. #VotersFirst
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) August 3, 2015
https://twitter.com/rvfriedmann/status/628346276187369477
@krystalball @LindseyGrahamSC @HillaryClinton Disgusting? Apparently MSNBC hires commentators with no knowledge of history. #ratings?
— Carl Gottlieb (@c_cgottlieb) August 3, 2015
https://twitter.com/_crookedcrosses/status/628347830105583616
https://twitter.com/Tark31/status/628345858505969664
https://twitter.com/jwcays/status/628345864990380036
@krystalball @LindseyGrahamSC @HillaryClinton President has sexual relationship with subordinate 1/2 his age and Graham is disgusting?
— Jeremy Avery (@therealjavery) August 3, 2015
https://twitter.com/cdrusnret/status/628349903295639552
https://twitter.com/AAJAQUITS/status/628348715057569793
https://twitter.com/sarahzview/status/628347426005385216
To be fair, Graham’s analogy was a little off.
@krystalball @LindseyGrahamSC @HillaryClinton Disgustingly bad logic. Hillary lied because she's a pathological liar, not because of Bill.
— ?Lisa Lu? (@lisalunu) August 3, 2015
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Update: Here’s a clip of the remarks which so incensed Ball: