Chris Christie attacked Marco Rubio on his experience at the Republican presidential debate in Manchester, N.H., Saturday, and it didn’t really go well for Rubio.
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The focus on the two senators allowed GOP front-runner Donald Trump to go largely untouched in his return to the debate stage.
New Hampshire’s primary could further winnow an already shrinking GOP field.
The pundits had little good to say about Sen. He was due a pasting-especially from the three governors, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Jeb Bush, who are vying with him for the mainstream conservative vote. “You have not been involved in a consequential decision where you had to be held accountable”.
Facing more boos, he continued: “That’s what it is”.
Christie launched into a lecture about what leadership is, comparing Rubio to another young, talented first-term senator who ran – and won – in 2008.
Kasich got to talk about that record. Voters can make their own judgement, he said. The talking heads complained that Rubio was too repetitive in his attacks on Barack Obama. “It’s one the reasons why I’m not running for re-election to the Senate and I’m running for president”, Rubio said.
“Every morning when a United States senator wakes up, they think about what kind of speech can I give or what kind of bill can I drop”, Christie said.
Marco Rubio targeted by fellow candidates for lacking political experience.
Ted Cruz pivoted repeatedly to the general election in the debate as his chief rivals sparred.
The champion college debater wasn’t much of a factor after a rough start to the debate, when he was asked about Trump’s temperament and allegations his campaign team engaged in “deceitful behavior” by suggesting in the moments before the Iowa caucuses started that retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was leaving the race.
Cruz apologized again for what his campaign had done, and blamed CNN for reporting that Carson was taking a break from his campaign.
“That’s because you got Ben Carson’s votes”, Trump said, responding to Cruz’s closing statement about his win in Iowa, an allegation Cruz hopes New Hampshire voters will look past when they vote in the primary on Tuesday. Having skipped the previous debate, in Iowa-a decision that perhaps contributed to his failure to win its caucuses on February 1st, as he had been expected to do-he was perhaps rusty.
After finishing second in Iowa, he sought to refocus on the core messages of his campaign, including blocking Muslims from going to the U.S. and deporting all people in the country illegally. “And I’m excited by that”, Bush said on “Meet The Press”.
“All I have to do is finish well”, he said.
He also dismissed the notion that New Hampshire is do-or-die for his campaign.
Rubio said the legislation was never going to pass without popular support, and the United States needed to begin enforcing immigration laws and improve border security before the public would have the confidence to back it. “That is downright wrong”, he said. Cruz demurred, saying he wouldn’t speculate about how he’d handle the situation without a full intelligence briefing.
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Cruz bypassed an early chance to tussle with Trump, refusing to repeat his criticism from earlier this week that he did not have the temperament for the White House.
