Aides for Chris Christie and Rand Paul are saying they got a rude surprise when they toured the greenroom spaces set up for candidates speaking at the Coors Event Center in Denver — instead of cushy seats, they got a toilet.
Donald Trump's greenroom has plush chairs and a flat-screen television, Carly Fiorina's has a jacuzzi, and Marco Rubio's has a theater-style room with leather seats,
reports Politico, all of which left advisors for the other campaigns hopping mad.
Chris LaCivita, an advisor for Rand Paul, tweeted Tuesday night:
He also invited followers to check out Rubio's theater seating: And Trump's accommodations were equally plush, he complained:
The complaints began flying after Republican National Committee officials took the campaigns on a tour of the debate site and the greenrooms.
After the tour ended, RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer and director of finance events Anne Marie Hoffman led a meeting with the advisers to run through the debate format for the Nov. 10 debate, to be held in Milwaukee.
But for advisors for Christie and Paul, there was plenty to talk about with their Denver accommodations.
"This is ridiculous," Christie campaign manager Ken McKay told the RNC leaders. "We're in a restroom."
LaCivita also demanded that something be done, telling the officials that it "sure as hell" did not seem like any advance work was done on the work spaces.
Another Paul adviser, Mike Biundo, who worked for Rick Santorum's campaign in 2012, commented that he never saw such issues back then.
The RNC officials said they'd try to fix the greenroom problems. Not all the aides for the lower-tier campaigns were concerned about the greenrooms, though, reports Politico.
Gail Gitcho, an aide in Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's campaign, said she had heard enough about the accommodations; she wanted to know why the entry criteria for debates couldn't be changed, as her candidate isn't being seen in primetime.
And Brett O'Donnell, an adviser for Lindsey Graham, wanted to change the format to allow two debates, with seven or eight candidates each who are randomly picked, so everybody would get a chance on the main stage.
The RNC isn't commenting about the complaints, but staffer Madeleine Westerhout sent out an email to the campaigns Tuesday night to let them know that Wednesday morning's conference call was being canceled.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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