Last chance! 4 GOP contenders spar for shot at big time

Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

Four longshot GOP presidential candidates are aggressively competing for the spotlight in Wednesday’s “undercard” debate – hoping to use the event as a springboard to break out of the lower-polling pack and join top-tier Republican candidates.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

The contenders – former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and former New York Gov. George Pataki – took the stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, at 6 p.m. EST.

Not one of those candidates has the support of even 1 percent of Republicans.

Santorum is leading the group with just .8 percent.

He has complained about the split debate format, based on his performance in 2012, when he came out of nowhere, polling just as poorly as he is now, to beat front-runner (and eventual GOP nominee) Mitt Romney in the Iowa causes.

The four were relegated to the undercard debate rather than the main event at 8 p.m. EST based upon their positions in the three major polls used by CNN to determine the candidates’ standings.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is tied with Santorum in the polls, did not appear on stage because he exited the race on Sept. 11., when he could no longer pay his staff.

Graham and Pataki are polling the lowest among the four long-shots. Former Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III is performing so low in the polls he wasn’t even invited to the event.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal

As WND reported in August, Carly Fiorina was quickly declared the winner in Fox News’ opening contest, even though she was then a member of the first debate, rather than appearing in the prime-time event with the top-tier candidates.

But her stellar performance shot her onto the national scene and into the top-tier for the CNN debate.

Immediately after the Fox debate, Fiorina experienced a massive six-point jump from her previous status at just 2 percent. She has continued to climb in some polls and has since dipped in others. Fiorina has cracked double-digits and reached 11 percent in the Real Clear Politics average of polls for the New Hampshire Republican primary.

It is her success that gives the four candidates in the first debate some hope of cracking into the top tier themselves.

CNN chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper is moderating both GOP debates, which will be shown live on CNN and live-streamed on the network’s website. Audience members have been asked not to cheer or boo during the debates.

The prime-time event begins at 8 p.m. EST and features the 11 leading Republican candidates: Donald Trump. Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, John Kasich, Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina.

Former New York Gov. George Pataki

Real Clear Politics’ polling average has Trump leading the GOP pack with 30.5 percent. Carson is at 20 percent, and is followed by Bush (7.8 percent), Cruz (6.8 percent), Rubio (5.3 percent), Huckabee (4.5 percent), Paul (3.3 percent), Fiorina (3.3 percent), Walker (3 percent), Kasich (2.5 percent), Christie (1.5 percent), Santorum (.8 percent), Perry (.8 percent, though he’s no longer running), Jindal (.5 percent) and Lindsay Graham (.3 percent).

The top issues the “undercard” candidates tackled in August included the economy and jobs, immigration, cyber security, ISIS, the Iran deal and Obamacare. The following topics are likely to be discussed Wednesday:

Immigration and refugee crisis

Immigration is one of the hot-button issues of the 2016 elections. The porous U.S.-Mexico border and the flood of incoming Muslim “refugees” were expected to take center stage at both debates.

America’s immigrant population hit a record high of 42.1 million (legal and illegal) in the second quarter of 2015. The total Mexican immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached 12.1 million in the second quarter of 2015 – the highest quarterly total ever. In addition to Mexico, growth in the immigrant population was propelled by a 449,000 increase by people coming from Latin American countries other than Mexico in the last year.

A Breitbart analysis of federal data shows Muslims are coming to the United States in droves, with 117,423 in 2013 alone coming from Muslim-dominated nations.

In the U.S., 1.5 million Muslims were permanently resettled in cities and towns throughout the country between 2001 and 2013. The refugees are placed on a fast-track to full voting citizenship, which is attainable within five years. Critics fear this will be a recipe for a major demographic shift in America.

All refugees, selected by the United Nations, are brought to the U.S. legally under the authority of the Refugee Act of 1980.

Dozens of the refugees have also run afoul of the law, including 72 cases of Muslim immigrants who have been arrested, just in the last year, for terrorist activity, according to a study by the Senate immigration committee.

Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, introduced a bill in the House July 30 to halt all refugee resettlements but not a single U.S. congressman has stepped up to co-sponsor his bill.

The refugee crisis swamping Europe is closely watched in the U.S., with many Republicans concerned about the likely prospect of Muslim terrorists using the opportunity to infiltrate the West.

Iran

Congress now has little chance of stopping implementation of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran now that Democrats in the Senate have blocked a bill disapproving the agreement. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is threatening to sue. But Obama had vowed to lift sanctions on Iran even if Congress hadn’t failed to muster the votes to stop the deal.

All the GOP candidates and every Republican in Congress oppose the deal.

Critics say Obama’s deal is a disaster that does nothing to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons because:

• The inspections process is largely determined by Iran, including which sites to inspect and when.

• Inspection details will be kept secret from Congress and the American public.

• The deal legitimizes Iran’s vast, and supposedly peaceful, nuclear program.

• It will give $150 billion in unfrozen assets to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

• It lifts the conventional arms embargo on Iran in five years.

• And it eliminates international travel restrictions on some of the world’s leading terrorists, including the head of Iran’s revolutionary guard.

• The deal does nothing to stop Iran from building or buying nuclear weapons after a decade.

Economy and Jobs

According to numerous surveys, the most important election issue in the 2016 cycle is the economy, including jobs.

Millions of Americans still can’t find full-time jobs, and their paychecks are barely keeping up with inflation. Private-job growth plunged in July, signaling slowing momentum in the U.S. economy. Employers hired 185,000 workers in July, significantly below the expected increase of 215,000 jobs. In the second quarter of 2015, the U.S. economy grew at a lackluster 2.3 percent. In August, private-sector jobs growth fell short of expectations with 190,000 positions – again below the projected 200,000.

Planned Parenthood

The nation’s biggest abortion provider has been reeling from the fallout of a series of devastating undercover videos exposing its business selling baby body parts, apparently for profit – which is illegal. Planned Parenthood received $528 million from taxpayers last year.

A bill to defund the agency failed in the Senate because there were not enough Republicans to overcome the 60-vote threshold to avoid a filibuster by Democrats.

Thirty-one Republican lawmakers in the House of Representative signed a letter saying they are committed to opposing any legislation to fund the federal government unless it defunds the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

That could lead to another government shutdown, if a spending bill is not passed by Sept. 30.

According to a study by the Congressional Research Service, Planned Parenthood would continue to receive the majority of its federal funding – including all of its Medicaid payments – even if Congress cannot enact a new spending bill on Oct. 1.

Kim Davis and religious freedom

Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis – along with assorted Christian bakers, photographers and florists – have become focal points in the battle of religious freedom, particularly since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

OneNewsNow reported, “A national poll done by Caddell Associates … shows almost three-quarters of Americans (71%) desire ‘a commonsense solution that both protects religious freedom and gay and lesbian couples from discrimination.’ Thus far, however, protection from such ‘discrimination’ typically has come at the cost of religious freedom and freedom of conscience.

“When asked which was more important – protecting religious liberty or protecting homosexual rights – voters by a 4-to-1 margin (31% to 8%) chose religious freedom. Most of the rest said both are important.”

When respondents were asked whether it should be up to the federal government to determine what constitutes legitimate religious beliefs, “[O]nly 11 percent agreed and a massive 79 percent disagreed. Indeed, even two-thirds of those on the ‘left’ of the segmentation disagreed.”

Conservatives say they are increasingly seeing a war on traditional values coming from the homosexual activist movement.

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