Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was subject of a flattering Friday profile in The New York Times, just as the hard-line contender was sending forth an email blast titled: “Fire the Media”.
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In a slide clearly targeted at preventing donor defections to Rubio, the campaign argued that Rubio’s claim of progress against Clinton, as the possible first woman president, would be “ridiculed by the media” and dredged up problems for Rubio, including the scandal surrounding Rubio’s use of a Florida Republican Party credit card for lavish personal expenses. Click on the “Reaction to the Republican Debate” video. He was followed closely by Florida Sen. It was meant to refer to Washington, but to GOP voters like Larry Eller, who turned out to see Bush at a Geno’s Chowder Shop in Portsmouth, the first thing Bush needs to fix is how he’s campaigned. Bush is a distant fifth in the national poll, with just 5 percent support.
Coming to Rubio’s defense, Beth Myers, who performed vetting for Mitt Romney’s search for his vice presidential candidate, said their examination of Rubio turned up no red flags. He is fourth in the NBC poll, with 9 percent support nationally. And it could help Rubio’s official campaign – which only raised $6 million in the most recent fundraising quarter – raise the cash necessary to challenge Bush.
Afterward, Harwood was universally panned by Republican candidates and pundits along with many in the media for what was deemed an astounding display of bias toward the participants. But Bush was glaringly ill-prepared for Rubio’s sharp comeback and quickly faded into the background for the rest of the two-hour contest. As cat-fights go, it has its own drama, to be sure. But on this day, Jeb Bush spoke outside, on a small pier lined with hay bales gone soggy from repelling the year’s highest tide.
The campaign also offered a candid assessment of their weak performance in Iowa so far: The campaign’s goal in Iowa is to win 18.45% of the vote, or 23,765 people. His monologue against the moderators’ twisted questions won the biggest applause from the audience and was repeated in virtually every news story about the debate. “I’m going to have to do what other candidates do, which is: Rudely interrupt, not answer the questions that are asked, and hopefully the debate moderators will actually ask more substantive questions as well”.
There are largely lessons here for the Republican party, if it chooses to listen. The tensions boiled over in the days leading to the CNBC debate, prompting Carson and Trump’s campaigns to threaten to boycott unless their demands were met.
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Both surveys of 1,000 likely USA voters were conducted between October 28-29 and include a margin of error plus or minus 3 percent.
