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What the Heck Happened to Marco?
“There is no way to sugarcoat Marco Rubio’s serious blunder at last night’s debate,” writes our own Mona Charen; the Boston Herald ran the headline, “Under fire, Marco Rubio crashes and burns”; and FiveThirtyEight begins its story on the debate with this:
We…endorse the conventional wisdom, for a change. Like most other people covering the event, we thought that Marco Rubio had a really bad night….
I had to miss the debate last night, unfortunately, but I’d assumed it could only help Marco, who seemed to be gathering strength for a strong second-place finish in New Hampshire. Jeepers. I turn my back for one little moment — and everything falls apart. (Yes, I know. It’s still early in the political year, but I’ve already reached the point at which I’ve begun feeling possessive about the whole campaign. It’s being run entirely for my own entertainment, right?)
Could somebody fill me in? What the heck happened to Marco? How bad was it? Can he recover in the next 48 hours?
Published in General
What happened to Marco? The same thing that probably happened to everyone Christie prosecuted on the stand. It’s just a disappointment he used those talents on Rubio instead of Trump.
He’s not running against Obama last time I checked.
So, you are attracted to a guy who is afflicted with a congenital non-sequitur (Obama is not the Dems’ candidate this time around)? I don’t get it. Running against Obama? How does that work?
“What the heck happened to Marco?”
He was exposed as the fake, plastic talking points machine he is.
I think this is a really good point in general. Has it really taken almost six months and eight debates for the governors to get in their groove, and they target the No. 3 guy?
To be fair, the tone and tenor of the debates is set by the moderators and their selection of questions, and there was a lot of fluff and nonsense in the first debates that played to Trump’s reality show persona. Only really in the last debate did they begin to seriously focus on policy and the governors’ strength.
And sure, we have this silly “establishment” vs. “non-establishment” divide, which I guess is a convenient short hand for grouping candidates but doesn’t tell us much otherwise. So the governors in the “establishment” lane wanting a break out moment have to get past Rubio, who is “establishment” because he has two more years in the Senate than the “non-establishment” Cruz.
But Trump is still at the head of the pack, and nobody has ever gone after him the way Christie and Bush went after Rubio. Yes candidates have voiced opposition to one or more of Trump’s statements, but I don’t recall any sustained attack on his fitness to be president or his ability to lead like we saw last night. When Bush tried a couple debates ago and got shouted down, I don’t recall Christie rising to push back.
Withering. Most withering. That should end all discussion on the topic.
Thank you for this. Perfect. I was listening to the debate today on headphones and I was so startled by that noise before I realized it was Cruz being emphatic.
He extrapolated it to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. He is stating that the left are not simpletons incapable of making decisions but rather are calculated (and they are). Clinton is running as Obama’s third term and Sanders is running as Super Obama’s term. Attacking the failures of Obama relates to what he sees Clinton and Sanders as doing.
And valuable new information for the candidates, about each other and about themselves. If they’re paying attention.
Eric Hines
So Rubio flubbed a little while making a valid point about Obama’s character and how the left is deliberate in their fundamental transformation of America. Here are some topics where he shined that happened after that tussle (which occurred in the first 20 minutes of the debate).
Rubio gave a succinct and rather good explanation of conservatism
He gave a passionate and right answer on abortion
http://www.ijreview.com/2016/02/531731-marco-rubio-says-the-issue-hed-rather-lose-the-election-on/
He also explained foreign policy well in relation to ISIS.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/republican-candidates-isis-abc-news-debate-36764003 (at 3 minutes)
If anything, its the media doing the left’s work for them. One mistake from Rubio and he is apparently dead to them. It’s like the time they found out about his debt or speeding record or that yacht he bought. They are making mountains out of mole hills because he smacks Hillary in social conservative areas. He does what the left doesn’t like, he fights with vigor and faith.
I’ve been seeing the Phyllis Schlafly-Rubio betrayal story at the top of Drudge the last few days.
So he fights back by endorsing the one issue she known for fighting against 40 years ago?
The only other person I know to mention something about this issue recently has been Mona Charen who seems to be one of the biggest Rubio supporters.
Good looks and pleasant optimism may help attract female voters, but that idea won’t.
…
And who’s talking about bringing back the draft? That’s like Mitt Romney’s birth control question. Was this another George Stephanopoulos gotcha question?
…
It might also be noted that William F. Buckley, Jr. was apparently one of the few libertarian-conservatives who did favor a type of national service at one time.
I want anyone who can work the equipment and send accurate fire down range doing so and killing our enemies.
to crush our enemies, to see them driven before us, and to hear the lamentations of their significant others?
No. No fair fights, no chivalry. Destroy our enemies, none left to be driven, no survivors to wail. Survivors will just recover and take another run at us.
I understand, too, the intent of the phrasing, but: I’m not interested in manning any ramparts. Let our enemies do that. Our brave, bloodthirsty combatants need to be razing them.
Anyone who can contribute to that favorable outcome needs to do so.
Eric Hines
Rubio may have a point, and so might have Christie. Rubio just made a weak formulation for his point. Executive inexperience is undeniably a weakness of Rubio’s, and he didn’t deflect that concern one iota in his response.
…while staunching the flow of Federal over-spending at the same time, I hope.
I dissent to this approach. I am sick of the battle for the sake of battle. The eventual nominee can either unite what is left of the country and govern effectively or extract the satisfying rhetorical “burn” leaveing the enemy seething and ranging for revenge. Not both.
Not really. The debaters don’t have to meekly go along. As Gingrich demonstrated in the last cycle.
Eric Hines
The concern of staying on message? Far better to know what you believe and be willing to argue for it than not at all. Christie’s campaign theme is the same as trump’s. The current people in government are inept and if you get the “right” individuals in the office they you will “fix” things and the trains will run on time. Christie is making the leftist pragmatist argument.
Rubio pointed out when defining conservatism that the government only has limited roles as defined by the constitution. It doesn’t matter how well your resume is if you think the president should do everything and talk as if you will.
At least Rubio distinguishes his policy approaches in foreign policy (where the president has the role) and domestic laws where he states he will propose bills to congress. Christie just talks about a thousand promises of how he will fix things because he was a governor. In his governorship he more or less blocked leftist policy and did not propose much (which is not his fault, he is from New Jersey, its hard to pass anything conservative there) in terms of conservative policy.
I need to look at the transcript. Because the words on my screen said “should women be required…” But they didn’t seem to quite be answering that question, and watching I honestly wondered if they interpreted it differently somehow. Especially Bush. Out-of-touch is one thing, but his “why should parents be worried” just seemed utterly bizarre unless he genuinely was talking about a choice not a requirement.
At this point opening up those roles to women is probably a done deal. I won’t hold that too strongly against a candidate. But I actually don’t want my young female relatives required to register for the draft. It is literally an issue that could sway my vote.
I have yet to listen to this debate. Having been busy playing video games with friends. Like Peter I have been hearing things that make me feel troubled, but these things that I hear come from pundits who are often the least qualified people to judge any political performance’s actual impact on real people. So, I turned to some real people, and asked my mom who had watched the debate. She didn’t even register the flub that all the pundits are getting all in a tizzy about. What she remembers is that Marco Rubio said exactly what she thinks, which is that Obama’s actions aren’t a sign of his incompetence but rather his malicious anti-american ideology. Now granted it is a sample of one, but it is probably a better indicator of how actual people took Rubio’s performance than what we hear from the chattering classes.
My recollection was that Newt would attack the premise of the question and not go off on something else.
I watched all the debates this cycle and (in my geeky way) I took notes. Looking back, you have to get to the fourth “debate” before you start getting to policy issues in any meaningful way.
I thought the first event was nothing more than competing interviews, the second was just CCN stirring up fights between candidates, and the third was the CNBC meltdown.
Those were three reality show events that focused on personalities and interactions, and very, very light on any opportunity to discuss policy. If those events had never been held, we would have missed nothing out of this cycle and the direction of those “debates” was a real disservice to GOP voters.
Having reached this point of opening so many combat and non-combat roles to women, why not consider them another available pool of manpower (pardon my micro-aggression)?
The fact that they register doesn’t mean we have to draft them. If we ever have our backs to the wall where a draft is necessary, they will do it by groups starting with the most fit (18-25 year old males, then 25-30, etc.). I think that’s how they did it in World War II. But if we get to that point, then why not consider conscription of young women as well to first fill non-combat roles, etc?
Eric, you can go run all the social justice experiments you like, but let’s leave the killing to those best suited for it.
Peter will remember the Saturday night before election day in 1988 Bob Dole was beating Poppy Bush by 17 points in the polls – then came Sununu’s “no tax pledge” gambit and he threw it away. Rubio’s mistake probably won’t be that significant because Christie won’t be the beneficiary of his cross examination, but he really, really hurt himself last night. Even if he wins the election, this will be what pundits and lefties will caricature for the rest of his career.
Put me in the old-fashioned camp that prefers chivalry, and doesn’t consider men and women interchangeable. I don’t think we should have opened those roles up to women, actually.
I’ll grant it’s somewhat of a theoretical debate beyond that. I haven’t decided precisely how important it is to me, because it rather blindsided me. I just didn’t expect to hear that unanimously at a Republican debate. I will chew on that while the media decides whether Marco Rubio is finished forever for having repeated himself three times.
To answer the question in the OP, I think Rubio can recover if he plays it right.
It was a verbal stumble. And every single one of those candidates repeats the same words verbatim on the stump, I’m sure. So create a lighthearted video piecing together bits of everyone’s 25-second soundbites on replay, including Christie. It’s a politician thing not a senator thing. They all say the same things over and over… you just generally do want to avoid doing it in the exact same answer.
That would take some of the sting out of Christie’s point, put the mistake in context, and prove the maturity to poke fun at oneself a little.
My dearest James,
The check is in the mail.
Sincerely,
EJH
Women in combat roles and being forced to serve in the military is a deeply unconservative idea.
Whether or not there is an actual draft going on is immaterial to the question.
Sununu gave us “Read my lips” and David Souter? Sununu seems like a great guy, but that’s still annoying.
My wife and I were at the Ricochet/NR debate-watching party last night. I did not see this as the utter fail that every press outlet is screaming about today. Rubio did stumble a little early on, but it wasn’t the end of the world, and he finished strong. This canned speech critique is the same for every successful national politician. The press hates it, because they want something new and they’ve heard the same pitch a million times. But the actual voters have not heard it a million times. If you’re lucky they’ve heard it 3 times and will remember it.
I was sitting behind a row of College kids who were watching with us and working on the campaign (I presume Conservative, since they were in the NR function) and the girls uniformly cooed when he came on how cute! he is. If you don’t think that matters, you’re wrong.
In short, the press is trying to find something to say, other than the actual issues. Also they are trying to weaken Rubio, given how strong he is against Hillary. They desperately don’t want the GOP nomination decided early. Then they’ll be forced to pay attention to Hillary and Bernie.
I probably instinctively lean in your direction, but certain considerations need to be made as well.
I was around in the decade when women were increasingly being assigned to ships in the Coast Guard and Navy. If you wanted to find debacles, you certainly could. But there were also very clear successes. My first female ops boss is now an Admiral, and I wasn’t surprised to see that.
The touchstone has always been the standards. If you really intend to welcome all comers who meet high standards, then we should be wary of sentiment. One of the things we proved by the success of transitioning to the all-volunteer force is that the US Armed Forces are amazingly good at adapting and building effective organizations.
But it comes back to the standards. The social experimentation is less about opening roles as it is about keeping to those standards. The real concern is about whether political correctness and policy objectives will push to put women in roles they cannot perform by lowering or ignoring those standards.
Different militaries have integrated women into combat roles to varying degrees. I think the IDF has women in combat roles. The Red Army had women in combat units during WW2 as I recall. Even the Wehrmacht had women operating anti-aircraft batteries (but a man had to pull the trigger).