Thursday's Republican presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina, featured a fracturing of the long truce between Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, the first- and second-polling Republicans in the race. So it is perhaps not surprising that those two candidates clocked the most speaking time at the debate, Cruz at 17 minutes, 52 seconds, and Trump right behind him at 17 minutes, 12 seconds, according to NRP's count. Notably further behind was Ben Carson, who spoke for only 8 minutes, 26 seconds:
The unequal speaking time is due in part to the moderators, Fox Business anchors Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo, and partly because of their relatively lax enforcement of the debate rules. One of those rules is that if you are mentioned by another one of the candidates, you can try to force yourself into the conversation. Carson was so overlooked that at one point he jumped in after Jeb Bush wrapped up and said, "Neil, I was mentioned, too." When Cavuto, confused, said, "You were?" Carson got off his best line of the night: "Yeah, he said everybody." It was funny because it was true.
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