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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
Registering women for the draft would absolutely kill the idea of the draft ever being used again. Why would the heads of the Army & Marines call for it? Maybe they don’t want a draft either, but don’t want to openly oppose it.
Probably. The all-volunteer force was a hard transition and a great success. Culturally, the military probably does not want to ever go back, absent a world war against other major powers. Democrats are frequently proposing a draft in order to make conflicts less appealing. It stands to reason to expand registration to make the draft less appealing.
Indeed. There were times, though, in the 2012 Senatorial contest when the press would ask Elizabeth Warren idiotic questions and she’d simply ignore the question and talk about one of her talking points.
Our Republican collection could learn from her as well as from Gingrich.
Eric Hines
The Marcomentum tide is headed for shallows and miseries, I’m afraid.
It was like watching Dan Quayle starring in a remake of Run Lola Run.
Granted Rubio had strong moments. Yet when you are the aspirational candidate with real momentum and your strongest moment comes when explaining why a 16 year-old girl who is raped by her uncle can’t have a very early term abortion, it is not a great night.
Sure, Christie is a blowhard, mediocre governor of a state with a junk bond credit rating and over $100 Billion of pension and retiree heath debt. And Christie engages in more 25 second canned rhetoric — wife 2 blocks from WTC, New Jersey AG as Eliot Ness/Jack Bauer — than anyone.
Yet, Christie telegraphed this punch for a week with his insufferable “boy in the bubble” taunts.
Then he popped that bubble and made Rubio look like a boy.
A very sad episode.
I suspect the media is piling on because he is the strongest match up against Hillary (they also might have been ticked by his answer on abortion).
Also of course the hardcore Cruz people are not going to defend him.
This whole episode irritates me, and I say that as a hardcore Cruz supporter. Everybody get a brain spazz now and then. Sometimes it happens at the worst possible time, such as happened to Gov. Perry four years ago. You have to look at a person over a period of time to evaluate who he is. Tim
Do you folks remember the ‘Equal Rights Amendment’ and the arguments we conservatives employed to defeat it?
Yet why couldn’t Rubio look over his own career and explain who he is: A very successful and consequential state house speaker, important part of an electoral wave that stopped the worst potential excesses of Obama. Why did he permit Christie and Bush/Murphy to effectively compare him to a no-show state legislator and half-term blue state senator who defeated Alan Keyes and gave one disingenuous speech?
When you are running on your inspirational biography and you can’t articulate that biography when the attack has been ongoing for weeks, it is a major problem.
This. Thank you so much, Brent: Thank you.
A nation that took masculinity and manhood seriously would need neither a draft nor women in uniform in anything but a stateside support role.
The USMC hasn’t had the ability to draft anyone since the darkest days of WWII.
Why they would want the army to have it I have no idea.
I have said some not very nice things about Ted Cruz, which I now deeply regret, because it is beginning to look like I will be voting for him :)
Christie is the one with the 25 second, “lather, rinse, repeat” line. It goes like this:
I’ve been a governor (prosecutor, attorney, whatever), and I’ve made hard decisions, we can’t afford another incompetent, ineffective, one-term Senator in the White House who doesn’t know what he’s doing, and these people in Congress get up in the morning and all they think about is what speech they are going to make, they never get anything done, and when I am President I will make the hard decisions, and I will get things done.
That has been Chris Christie’s platform for every debate up to this point. It reflects a troubling contempt for Congress (I know, I know), that I also think is quite worrying.
Rubio completely blew what I believe is a very good answer. He should have said that Chris is wrong, that we have, in the White House now, a first term senator-turned-president who has been incredibly effective in implementing his agenda, and who is not ineffective and incompetent at all. [Insert list of distasteful Obama achievements at home and abroad here]. Therefore, again, Chris’s premise is wrong. A first-term senator can be an effective and competent president. The problem with Barack Obama is that he has been leading the country, effectively, and competently, in the wrong direction. I, Marco Rubio, will right that ship of state and sail it off into the future.
Or some such thing.
I don’t know why he got so flustered. But I believe he underlying point is absolutely correct. Whether or not he is the ‘first term senator’ who can carry the day or do the job remains to be seen.
Many of his other answers were quite good.
If we are going to fixate on one blunder, or one distasteful position, and throw the baby out with the bathwater, one candidate after another, there will soon be no candidates left. (Remember, “the deepest bench in recent history?” Where did they all go?)
All these candidates are flawed.
Choose your poison.
It depends? Do you think he was attacking Obama? Or do you think he was making a point about being qualified?
I think he was making a point and the media wants to make it a big snafu. Which if you are making a point and no one gets it you are probably too subtle. So it was a probably a snafu.
But I got it at the time and was frustrated at how it was covered.
Do you think Obama is a victim of not having enough experience?
Or do you think Obama planned, and executed exactly what he wanted to do?
If you think a one term Senator has transformed America in the way he planned, that his lack of experience didn’t stop him… then being a one term Senator is plenty of experience.
So… that was Rubio’s point. Which he repeated over and over to get it across to Christie who is too dumb to get it.
I just wish more people understood it that way.
Rubio said he hopes people play the clip over and over because he said what he meant to say.
I actually did get it and when Trump tried to say the opposite, I thought Trump got it too.
But the political press didn’t get it. So I guess that is what counts.
Rubio failed to highlight his substantial accomplishments and detail how Obama has been successful in utterly radicalizing his party and beginning to transform our country.
Agree? If not, consider this:
Rubio failed to highlight his substantial accomplishments and detail how Obama has been successful in utterly radicalizing his party and beginning to transform our country.
You see? No, well here:
Rubio failed to highlight his substantial accomplishments and detail how Obama has been successful in utterly radicalizing his party and beginning to transform our country.
It’s clear right? Then see it this way:
Rubio failed to highlight his substantial accomplishments and detail how Obama has been successful in utterly radicalizing his party and beginning to transform our country.
That was my first thought today. But I went to Rubio’s site and he says, he hopes the pundits play what he said over and over, because he meant what he said and he wants people to get it.
I think the point was Obama’s experience was plenty… so is Marco’s.
I’m not sure, but I think her rejection of Rubio is not just politics… I was reading about how there is sort of a difference inside the Evangelicals. Some think Cruz is destined to fight for the soul of the nation. Since Rubio is in his way… they turned on him.
I am really leery of what is happening with that Cruz the preacher thing he has going on. They actually might be trying to elect a pastor in chief.
I’m not really okay with that.
I will vote for Trump or Jeb or any one else. Cruz gives me the creeps, I’ll not listen to his “sincere” voice for 4-8 years. I’d just have to stop watching TV… Obama was bad, but he’s the other side I expect to not like it, but Cruz… ug.
I believe Marco Rubio is experienced enough to pass a huge amnesty once he is elected president, whether he has a Democratic or Republican Congress. More than enough experience. That’s why I won’t vote for him.
Last I heard, Phyllis Schlafly was endorsing Donald Trump, so I really don’t think her criticism of Rubio has anything to do with Ted Cruz.
This is where I think this is going: he’s got looks and likability. If I had to make a bet today, I’d put it all on Rubio.
As much as I understand the point Christie was making, he came across as a bully, and the flustered Rubio just looked all the more human.
In the television era, Rubio is a winner.
Do you know any committed Christians? Was having a conversation about this debate today. This just isn’t true in any meaningful way (save that, of course, among every group of people there are some who will project all their hopes on a politician, and state that in over-the-top language.)
Some are suspicious of Rubio because of policy questions, or even because he’s Catholic, or because he simply is smoother than Cruz, but I didn’t pick up on any special hatred of Rubio because he’s in Cruz’s way. Some like Rubio, actually.
And then there’s Trump.
I missed that. Seriously?
Yeah, but the President is going to face a double handful of bullies around the world.
Rubio needs to do better. I’m not concerned about one episode; I’ll be interested in how he reacts, recovers, and does better.
Eric Hines
Peter,
The event you described never happened. Chris Christie took a cheap shot at Marco at the opening. ABC set it up intentionally. Marco handled the situation quite well. Then ABC went into its phony act. Within a minute they went into their narrative. Christie got him and Marco was having a bad night. Next they claimed the “governors” were having a good night. All of this was a total fantasy. In fact Marco’s performance for 2.5 hours was stronger than any of the other debates. The Governors were having their same mediocre performance as in all of the other debates. Comic touches were ABC cut away to some college kids. In the background people were chanting for Marco and for Trump. Meanwhile, in the foreground a rather limp looking undergrad was interviewed who immediately stated that Marco didn’t do well and the governors were having a great night, speaking of a scripted performance.
This was an amazingly disgusting display of media manipulation. Considering Stephanopoulos is part of Clinton Cash why should we expect any different. Hillary does not want to run against Marco. They have been desperate to stop Marco all along. If Christie thinks his low life play is going to get him anywhere he is dreaming. Unfortunately, he will go back to being Christie and Marco will go back to being Marco. That’s punishment enough for Christie.
When New Hampshire doesn’t go the way they want after pulling this nonsense, they will look as small as they are.
Regards,
Jim
I thought Christie exposed Rubio for what he is: pre-programmed, a talker not a doer, all rhetoric. This was the Rubio of the furtive water glass moment, an actor unprepared.
Only on live TV! Rubio kept repeating the very memorized patter which Christie accused him of using. Some counted eight times. The edited version was comedic.
And that wasn’t all.
It came a day after Phyllis Schlafly’s devastating 15 page “Rubio Betrayal Memo” on immigration. The policy-oriented analysts of the Republican race cannot honestly ignore Rubio’s history on this matter.
Yes, he’s good-looking, young, and takes risks with sentimental intonation when delivering lines about national purpose and his own autobiography. You may think that can win the hearts of voters. It also makes him very vulnerable to the charge of being a phony.
Now here’s a take from outside the local bubble on Rubio’s edgy foray into the politics of abortion.
I don’t know why ABC recruited Mary Katharine Ham, and how she came to ask social issues questions in a state like New Hampshire where evangelicals are a non-factor. But they did, and she did, and as I’ve said here before, Rubio is as gung-ho on this stuff as Cruz, Santorum, or anyone else. The exposure of Rubio’s extreme (IMHO) position on the abortion rights of rape and incest victims won’t go away now. The video clip of his answer — and the contrast with two of his pro-life opponents — is now easily found by both admiring devotees, and smiling opposition researchers.
While some may hope Rubio will find use for that video in his Judgement Day dossier, I expect it will serve him less well on the temporal plane. And that’s fine with him. He won’t be upset if he loses because of that issue, so he said. Another usable clip.
Of course he’ll have to get nominated first, and that’s much less likely to happen than it was before this weekend.
Just as the Democrats are beginning to dust the cobwebs off Joe Biden, the “electability” conservatives supporting Rubio and opposing Trump may also be asking themselves who is the understudy to their flop sweat-soaked champion.
Okay it never happened. What then did Rob Long, John Podhoretz, Jonah Goldberg, Mona Charen, David French, Brit Hume, Tim Alberta, Rich Lowry, Charles Cooke, Noah Rothman, Carl Cameron, and Steve Hayes witness?
Guess they are all MSM hacks now. Or just susceptible to Stephanopolous’s Jedi mind trick overlordship.
It doesn’t help Rubio when supporters choose to suspend criticism and become paranoid bobbysoxers.
JimK,
OK Jim, then Trump was a democrat and he openly supported single payer. Christie is a very limited figure with no vision past the tri-state area or the ability to sell past the tri-state area. The response that Marco gave three times is beyond your ability or Christie’s ability to grasp. He was slightly bothered by just how limited Christie was but then he smelled the ABC setup. For the next 2.5 hours he was great and the governors looked like the stooges. Jim, if you want to be a democrat and vote for HRC why don’t you just change your registration and do it. Unless of course you don’t need to change your registration. Hey wait, maybe Stephanopoulos has got a job for you.
The Clinton Cash Crowd can always use another hatchet man.
Regards,
Jim
What is it that the Trump haters call his voters? Ah yes. Trumpkins.
Turnabout is fair play. How about “Rubibots” for Mr. Electability’s crowd?