Former Town Councilman Bill Diamond has been friends with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump for years and has known three generations of the Trump family.
Diamond said the other candidates “went after” the part-time Palm Beacher in Wednesday’s debate hosted by CNN at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
“He was the target and he handled himself very well considering they all piled on him,” Diamond said. “It wasn’t a fair fight and he did the best he could under the circumstances.”
Many political analysts named former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as the clear winner of Wednesday's Republican presidential debate, with strong showings by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and West Palm Beach resident Dr. Ben Carson.
Feedback regarding Trump was mixed, with some analysts putting him in the losing category. The odds of Trump winning the GOP nomination fell 8 percentage points to 12%, according to the Political Prediction Market from CNN and Pivit.
Democrat Cynthia Friedman is a longtime member of the Mar-a-Lago Club and has known Trump for years. She thought Trump was calmer than in the first debate last month in Ohio.
“He has been a total gentleman at all times at Mar-a Lago,” she said. “He’s done everything he’s promised to do at the club and more. People in this country are fed up with the political system. Nothing happens and along comes somebody who says ‘I make things happen. I get results. I’m worth $10 billion.’ It gets people’s attention.”
Fiorina showed a “command of knowledge” but came across as tense and angry, Friedman said.
"The one in command was Trump," Friedman said. "I saw him as leader of the class. One thing about Donald Trump, all those years on The Apprentice has made him very comfortable in front of the cameras. Jeb Bush and the others were scrambling. Trump was never scrambling."
The media doesn’t understand Trump as a candidate, said Marie Davis, president of the Palm Beach Republican Club.
“He is who he is,” she said. “He’s not a politician. The reason he’s so confusing to the media is they’re trying to put a round peg in square hole. I don’t agree with how his message is delivered, but he says the things the rest of us are worried about. There are business people who won’t say those things because they’re afraid of being labeled as an extremist and he doesn’t care.”
Davis said she was disappointed in the questions, because she felt the people asking the questions focused on the personal issues among the candidates rather than the issues.
“It’s not entertainment news,” Davis said. “It’s not ‘he said, she said.’ You have the questioners just egging them on and it’s just for ratings.”
Republican fundraiser Gay Hart Gaines also didn’t like the questions posed.
Gaines thought Rubio was “on fire,” that Fiorina was “absolutely incredible” and “loved” the way Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich focused on the American people.
“The reason we have Trump is people are sick and tired of being lied to,” Gaines said. “People think that maybe he can fix the problems. He appeals to people who don’t have a voice and don’t know where to turn.”
Hosting the three-hour Republican presidential debate Wednesday night proved a ratings windfall for CNN. An average of nearly 23 million viewers made it the most watched program in CNN's history.
Diamond is on Rubio’s national finance committee, but also supports Trump and Christie. In the end, whoever wins the nomination will get Diamond’s support.
“It’s not a question if you like one you can’t like another one,” Diamond said. “It’s like a plural marriage in the political sense. You can be wedded to more than one.”
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