Reading up to prepare for watching the GOP debates tonight, I came across a fascinating factoid. Roger Simon of PJ Media remarks parenthetically of Carly Fiorina's supporters:

BTW, apropos Carly, according to a just-released study from Grammarly, Fiorina’s Facebook fans have the best grammar, spelling and punctuation of all Republican candidates at only 6.3 errors per 100 words. Trump’s fans came in last at 12.6 errors per hundred words.

I don't want to make too much of this delightful factoid, and I certainly don't want to be dismissive of the justifiable anger about the way things are in the U.S. that motivates Trump supporters. And if GOP debaters are smart tonight, they will try to show that they, too, understand this righteous indignation.

If nothing else, all GOP debaters on both stages tonight, no matter that the media is egging them on to condescend to Trump, should remember at all times one very important thing about Trump's supporters: they have votes, and they aren't going to bestow them lightly in the general election. It is a curiosity of American politics just now that a thrice-married New York billionaire is at the helm of a populist movement. But there you have it.

I don't like identity politics and don't care about the gender or ethnicity of a politician. But I rather wish Fiorina had made the cut and would be on the stage with the first tier candidates because she is such a different kind of candidate from the Democratic standard bearer,  Mrs. Clinton, and the GOP would have done well to showcase that. Fiorina began her career as a secretary rather than an aide on the Nixon impeachment committee.

Fiorina rose to head a Fortune 500 company, and then was fired in a boardroom brawl. She rose again from this debacle. Mrs. Clinton became first lady, a senator and secretary of state, an office she left with fulsome praise from her boss, the president, who failed to mention that the first U.S. ambassador murdered in the line of duty in three decades was lost on her watch. I'd rather prefer a president who knows you can get fired and live to tell the tale.

The Washington Post did a story on Fiorina's absence from the prime-time debate, and I think my boss struck just the right note:

Sabrina Schaeffer, executive director of the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative think tank, said Fiorina’s absence from the main stage will be felt. “From the perspective of women voters, I think it’s really disappointing,” she said.

Schaeffer said Fiorina would bring to the debate “the ability to talk about workplace regulations and challenges that women and their families are facing in a way the other candidates can’t.”

She added: “I think that overall it’s important to have someone on the right capable of talking about pay equity and paid leave mandates and child care, and she’s able to do that very effectively. Without her voice up there, they won’t have as robust a conversation about those issues.”

But in one of those twists of fate we see in American politics, and which Simon notes in the aforementioned column, Carly may have done just fine to get on the second stage. There are fewer candidates and she has more chance to shine.

And her grammar is excellent.

 

(Check out Grammarly)