Now, he is on the cusp of breaking out or fizzling out, and clearly sees Rubio as his main obstacle and target.
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KELLY: All right, Erick Erickson, thank you. “He’s humiliated.’ I come in second, I’m not humiliated”, Trump said.
Rubio now has 32 endorsements to Bush’s 31 – a blow to the former Florida governor and yet another sign that the GOP establishment is consolidating around Rubio before next week’s New Hampshire primary as its best hope to defeat outsiders Donald Trump and Sen.
Come next week, Cullen says, the pressure will be on to consolidate establishment support behind one candidate to stop Trump.
“He just doesn’t have any experience”, Christie said Thursday on ABC’s Good Morning America. Bush says Rubio and Ted Cruz, the victor in Iowa, are “backbenchers” in the U.S. Senate and repeatedly ridicules Donald Trump, Iowa’s No. 2, as a “blowhard”.
On the rise in a tightening race, Marco Rubio shouldered intensifying attacks Friday from moderate-leaning Republicans who fear a strong Rubio showing in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary could spell the end for their frazzled presidential campaigns. As The Week’s Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote Tuesday morning, Republican elites love Rubio so much because he embraces the GOP’s policy platform from the last 15 years and pairs it with a politically appealing personal story.
“It was clear Governor Bush was cracking a joke with the audience, who laughed and enjoyed the humor”, Kristy Campbell said.
Christie has begun referring to Rubio as “the boy in the bubble”, mocking both Rubio’s youth and his propensity to deliver the exact same speech at event after event. “He’s not doing very well, and he did very poorly in Iowa”. They conceded that, barring a major misstep by Trump, one of two men Trump or Cruz (neither owned by them), was going to be the next president.
As for the other candidates, Cullen says he and others are concerned that Cruz can’t carry swing Republican states. Christie knocks Bush. Bush knocks Trump.
Asked about Bush, Christie suggested he was a non-factor.
OK, so we know Jeb Bush’s family is supporting him, and he was the candidate favored by a lot of big-money GOP donors.
If Rubio is able to successfully steal a healthy amount of support from Kasich, Bush and Christie in Iowa, the senator could easily be competitive with Trump in New Hampshire. The senator found his footing later in the debate when outlining his call for more aggressive action to fight the Islamic State and emphasizing his anti-abortion stance. “You’re looking at that guy, by the way”, he remarked.
“I think we need to do more of that”, Rubio said. And they did, so, you know, it could have been worse.
That’s partly because Rubio is trying to portray himself as a candidate for all Republicans – a possible bridge builder who could coalesce Tea Party and traditional establishment support around him.
“You know what else is inconvenient?” Carson told a Fox News podcast that Cruz’s lackadaisical defense brought to mind Clinton’s response to the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. “And nearly everything he said I lined up with”.
Christie: “Yeah, I could tell by the roll of the eyes”. “I had met him several times but never when he was in the heart of it – I mean we’re at the finishing line now”. Rubio will have to confront one of them at some point – but hopes that will not be Saturday night, but down the road as the primary battle moves into the South and Midwest. Otherwise, Republicans are sure to lose if they nominate a senator who would look like a “deer in headlights” against Hillary Clinton on a debate stage.
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Like a true New Hampshirite though, she said she wouldn’t make her final decision until the last minute. And when Bush spoke at the Alpine Club, among those introducing him was Judd Gregg, a former New Hampshire senator and governor whose father was also governor.
