Rubio said a new GOP president should appoint someone who would “put people on the bench who understand that the constitution is not a living and breathing document – it is to be interpreted as it was originally meant”.
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And when Trump laid the blame for 9/11 at the feet of President George W. Bush, even Marco Rubio rushed to Bush’s defense. The breadth of Sanders’ decisive victory over Hillary Clinton signaled a long, drawn-out primary battle in which the former secretary of state’s onetime inevitability no longer seems so inevitable.
The results were simultaneously startling and something of a non sequitur.
The Ohio governor wanted you to know on Saturday night he’s a uniter not a divider. We have to rebuild our country. This majority includes Independents, married women and white millennials.
The debate spotlighted two evils Republicans confront as the campaign unfolds: More voter alienation, and less party unity.
With the contest for the party’s nomination moving into SC and the stakes rising, it is possible the most disparaging discourse of the November 8 election campaign is yet to come.
For Trump, perhaps the most blustery of the candidates, the target is constantly changing, his numbers remaining constant in the opinion polls while he assails rivals for being “stupid”, “weak” and “pathetic”.
Second, voters are angry. “But, he clearly helped himself”. He contends Trump could not be trusted to do the same.
Clinton and Rubio, by comparison, are cooler candidates and have struggled as a result.
Marco Rubio is the clear favorite among Republicans, while independents are largely divided between Trump, Kasich, and Rubio. Trump definitively exposed. Cruz, Rubio and Bush all impressive in different ways…
“These adults are acting like elementary children”, Leslie McRobbie, a former fifth-grade schoolteacher from New Hampshire, said of this year’s Republican contenders. Pro tip: they can’t. She is the overqualified candidate, the plug-and-play president, but the lack of overwhelming enthusiasm for her has turned into a roar of disinterest.
Following the debate, Jeb Bush was in high spirits noting that he thinks he got under Trump’s skin and that he exposed some of the flaws in his candidacy.
[T]his was the debate where Donald Trump finally succeeded in bringing the whole party down to his level. Bush, typically more timid on the stage, was unwavering as he exclaimed he was “sick and tired” of Barack Obama and Donald Trump attacking his family. Trump’s self-sustained air of inevitability was dinged by his failure to win Iowa.
– Closing statements: Come on, man. What are we even doing out here, man?
So far, at least, it is a war that many Republicans are willing to wage alongside Trump. This man embraces (Russian President Vladimir) Putin as a friend. And yet, he has uncovered a portion of the electorate poorly served by both parties. Despite his civil demeanor, Kasich argued for the virtues of ObamaCare/Medicaid expansion, while Trump commended the wonderful efforts of Planned Parenthood and sounded like a Democrat on Social Security.
Trump defended Planned Parenthood, as everyone else promised to defund it. “It does wonderful things, but not as it relates to abortion”, he said.
Fourth, the race will go on and on.
Obama’s problems extend beyond the obviously heated campaign rhetoric.
Bush provoked another outburst from Trump by saying the Republican nominee should be someone “who doesn’t brag, for example, that he has been bankrupt four times”.
They are joke candidates-turned-real, one-trick ponies who were surprised to discover that their anger and tunnel vision focus connected with voters.
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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose confrontation with Rubio during last week’s debate in New Hampshire – he mocked the first-term senator for repeating the same phrases over and over again – damaged Rubio but not to Christie’s benefit.
