Posted on 02/07/2016 5:54:05 AM PST by Helicondelta
Marco Rubio was stuck on repeat Saturday night, and it threatens his momentum in the New Hampshire primary.
The POLITICO Caucus - a panel of operatives, strategists and activists in the early-nominating states - overwhelmingly judged Rubio the loser of the final debate before the first-in-the-nation primary.
More than two-thirds of GOP insiders surveyed after the ABC News debate said Rubio lost, and more than 70 percent said the Florida senator's performance will hurt his chances of toppling front-runner Donald Trump or even outpacing his fellow competitors for second place on Tuesday.
The problems for Rubio began when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie challenged Rubio early on, and Rubio replied repeatedly with a canned response about President Barack Obama's agenda to change the country.
New Hampshire GOP insiders called Rubio "cringeworthy," "badly programmed and robotic," "so rehearsed he comes off as inauthentic," and "exposed at last for the wind-up doll he is."
"He botched the exchange with Christie, sounded like a broken record, and was sweating so much that he looked like he needed Charlie Crist's fan blowing on him," added another New Hampshire Republican, who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I wonder if the Cruzers thought Marco crashing would get them votes? I doubt it. My impression was that it seemed the others were close to shunning Cruz. Will those votes that leave Rubio be split among the govs and Carson (sympathy vote)?
Who reprogrammed the Rubiobot into an endless looping subroutine? That was a dirty trick? Ted Cruz’s campaign?
I don’t see any voters frustrated by the GOPe voting for anybody but Cruz at this point. I love Carson, but he has not educated himself enough on foreign policy and is a terrible debater. I also worry that he has not done well managing his own campaign. Against a well funded campaign like Hillary’s, that’s deadly.
Rubio and Cruz will again outperform expectations.
Why are you posting from Politico? Based on their political leanings, you might as well post from the DNC directly!
Christy knew that the attacks on Rubio were going to hurt Rubio, but they were not going to help himself. Could it be that he was in cahoots with trump to take Rubio down a notch for the AG Spot in the new Trump administration?
Chris Christie even looks kind of like Harvey Mudd...
OK, I am not a big Rubio fan. For me, it is Trump first, Cruz a close second, and anyone but the Democrats third.
I’m not quite getting this Rubio criticism here. Sure, he repeated the very correct point that Obama knows what he’s doing when he goes about destroying the country a little more every day. Frankly, it’s a point worth repeating. People dismiss Obama as an idiot who thinks he’s helping the country. He’s not. His “leadership” is designed to bring down the country, and it’s working. He DOES know what he’s doing.
If I were running for President, it would be one of my talking points, too.
My retort to Christie would be, “Who are we running against here? Please direct your criticism toward the Democrats!”
Back in the 1980s, there was a Video Game called Dragon Quest. It was kind of cool because you played the game on the normal big pixel eight color screen, but depending on what happened in the game, you would get ten second video clips that flash up, usually of your grusome death.
The first time you saw this game, you loved it, because it got beyond the limitations of the flat screen game, and held the promise of a virtual reality live-action game. But after you saw it a couple of times, you grew to dislike it, because it only had about twenty video clips, and while the video clips were cool, they were all clips of things you really didn’t like, namely, your own death.
I feel the same way about Marco Rubio. When you first see him, you are kind of excited, because he gives these vaguely appropriate sounding answers all wrapped in smooth caramel goodness. But after a pretty short amount of time, you realize that there are only about twenty different clips, and you have seen them all before. Then you start to look at the individual clips, and you realize that you don’t really like them so much after all.
I called it for Christie’s big night and I think he moves ahead of Kasich to take the 4th slot. Rubio did get hurt and I think he will settle into the number 3 slot behind Cruz. Trump will win by a comfortable, but not unsurprising, 13 to 15 points.
At this stage, I am thinking:
Trump 32%
Cruz 17%
Rubio 15%
Christie 12%
Kasich 8%
Carson 7%
Bush 7%
Fiorina 2%
Rubio swings both ways!
Are you a GoPeer? Your boy Rubio augered in was exposed for what we all knew him to be and you attack the messenger.
I agree that Christie probably hurt Rubio a little, but I don’t think he helped himself any. Christie will be gone after New Hampshire, but look for him to reappear as an AG Candidate in a Trump Admin.
Cruz sounds like a kid hyped up on Red Bull. His delivery is robotic and painfully hyper. His message is lost with the delivery. And his amnesty views suck.
They're also frustrated with politics as usual. During the debate, there were plenty of reminders that Cruz is running a "do whatever it takes to win" campaign. Even if, as you submit, they won't go to Carson, they might go to one of the Three Govs
My apology it was Rubio that sounded like hyper kid! Cruz sounded the same as always.
I think Christie gets a tourist pass to South Carolina with Bush and Carson.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.