Rubio in New Hampshire: The low spark of

[saltpoint]

high-heeled boys...

When he was talking I heard a 7-year old, protesting some unfairness generally, refusing to accept responsibility for his record or his actions, and blaming Barack Obama. He flailed, he whined, he recited his memorized script. Not very presidential. Not very adult.

Christie, who should not be lecturing anybody on earth for wrongdoing at any level, jumped Marco and flat-out beat him up on national television.

It's hard for any of us to think as Republicans think. Many of us don't believe Republican think at all. But to the extent that they might, it's difficult seeing them endorsing Marco Rubio for president after this evening's debate.

What's much harder to picture is who they choose if not Rubio. After tonight, it seems the GOP convention just got a whole lot more interesting.

[TDale313]

1. It was a terrible night for Rubio.

And the type of bad night that sticks.

[saltpoint]

2. Yes. He'd had a good week in polling

and in press coverage and it all went up in smoke in that debate generally and in the fracas with Christie especially.

[LiberalElite]

3. I didn't watch it - I haven't watched any of them - but Christie

"jumped Marco and flat-out beat him up" - sorry I missed that part!

[saltpoint]

4. The Christie - Rubio dustup is on several clips

on the web. A quick search will bring it up -- possibly 'Rubio, Christie, debate'.

It was as if Rubio had merely memorized a script while Christie, who's no angel after all, anticipated the script and set an ambush.

[LiberalElite]

29. It was delish to watch nt

[saltpoint]

32. It is. For political junkies, this is

one for the books.

I also find myself looking up and enjoying Lloyd Bentsen's take-down of Dan Quayle some years back.

"Senator I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy.Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Kapow.

[LiberalElite]

34. .

P.S. I liked the nice "quiet" set back then too - none of this red-white & blue-Vegas-Dancing-with-the-Stars glitz.

[saltpoint]

36. LOL. "...none of this red-white & blue Vegas

Dancing With the Stars glitz."

Nice.

And true, too.

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. Here it is.

[treestar]

13. Thanks

Christie sucks. He was fine with President Obama when he went to NJ at the time of Sandy.

[LiberalElite]

25. Thanks! nt

[saltpoint]

33. Thank you for providing that,

Liberal_in_LA. I was asleep at the switch.

Christie is a guy who has no grounds to lecture anybody else on earth on ethics or responsibility to constituents or anything else for that matter. Yet there he was blasting Rubio. Not that Rubio didn't deserve a blasting. But it's just a delight watching the Republicans beat the crap out of each other on national television.

Please proceed, Republicans.

[No Vested Interest]

5. David Gergen (normally fairly objective, though he leans right) said "Rubio was not

Presidential" in the debate.

[saltpoint]

19. Gergen does get it right sometimes. This time, for

example. Agree.

[JI7]

6. i have been thinking for some time that Cruz and Trump may be tougher to beat than Rubio

but Christie would be one of the toughest because he knows the electorate. he comes off thuggish but not in a Trump kind of way. he knows there are limits where one does not go over if they want to win.

Rubio has that thing which turns off most people which isn't really political but just general doucheness. like Martin Shkreli .

[saltpoint]

20. Yes. Shkreli and Rubio both are having a

real tough time of it lately. Most of us would not want to hang around anybody who wasn't appalled by Shkreli.

And Rubio just seems witless, as if he only barely understands he's in a campaign that involves a job at the White House. All those repeated phrases he uses makes him seem like a school kid who is trying to tell his teachers what they want to hear.

I really think Rubio is in the wrong line of work.

[global1]

7. I Watched The Very First 15 Minutes Of This Debate....

I saw the interchange between Christie and Rubio. Christie torn him a new one. Rubio looked totally foolish as he kept reciting the same talking points that Christie was criticizing him for. I turned the debate off right after that to watch the movie Burnt with Bradley Cooper. After the movie - I watched the news - and they only played this interchange with Christie and Rubio. That was the highlight of the debate - and I didn't have to waste the additional hour and a half to watch the rest of it.

By the way Burnt is a good movie to watch - I recommend it.

[malaise]

12. We switched stations shortly after that clip

They are all vexations to our spirits.

[saltpoint]

28. I may check out Burnt,

global1, and feel your strategy of watching a film rather than listening to a stageful of Republicans was a sound one.

I'm encouraged also that the clip some of the media are using is the Christie take-down of Marco Rubio. Now let New Hampshire's GOP primary voters move in and finish him off.

[Hortensis]

8. My guess is big money will fix Rubio's problems.

He's going to have plenty.

I no longer believe conservative voters will decide anyone is too awful to support -- they are very malleable and very committed to opposing the Democrats, and huge amounts of money will be dedicated to helping them "decide." An estimated $1 billion for the presidency alone.

Last time I was surprised was when I didn't think the GOP would elect W. He was so ignorant he literally had no idea where a country that had been on the evening news for over a week was. He couldn't explain his own official policy positions in debate. He walked away from his National Guard service; and as he was a Bush scion serving a worthless, self-aggrandizing service anyway, they didn't bother to bring him back. Two official DUI charges of a Bush in Bush country.

The GOP, and more importantly -- BIG MONEY -- will get behind whoever is nominated. Notice how conservative heads have started talking up and "re-birthing" Trump as a normal person over the past month or so?

And how about Romney? Much of the Christian Right insisted Mormons were not Christians, until Romney mostly purchased himself the nomination, then many of those decided they were and joined the rest of the GOP to get behind someone no one in the GOP, except Romney himself, wanted.

[bklyncowgirl]

17. Big Money couldn't fix Rick Perry's "Ooops" moment. They won't fix this.

I could be wrong across, this is a somewhat longer soundbite but I imagine that the late night comics will be all over this and it will repeat and repeat until it is seared into the American conscience.

[Hortensis]

49. I'll be crossing my fingers that you're right.

IMO someone like him should never get this close to the White House. At least people know Trump is a buffoon and that many people hate Crazy Cruz. A good start for them. But the Nice Boy?

[saltpoint]

31. Any time a lot of cash is slapped down

on the barrel, it has the potential to change the game. Whether money can lift Rubio out of his own very significant limitations remains to be seen.

Possibly -- this close to the NH primary voting -- a lot of likely GOP primary voters in that state were undecided even up to the debate last evening. After watching/listening to the Christie-Rubio exchange, I'm wondering if they might conclude that:

1) Christie is right in his criticism of Rubio but Christie nevertheless is an asshole; and
2) Rubio looks and sounds untested and vacuous.

That combination may mean Trump may win NH after all. But who places second now? Maybe Rubio survives this debate, but my god, even Republicans aren't that stupid, are they? Ok, the are.

So it is a couple days from the vote in NH. The outcome has the feel of a food fight rather than an election. And when I think of food fights, I think of a grade school setting. Which might be too mature an allegory for the current crop of Republican hopefuls.

[rufus dog]

9. You have to give Trump credit

He got Rubio to go back to his prepared script. I would like to think it was Trumps ego and dumb luck, but by contradicting Rubio's belief, he was able to get Marco to restate his prepared line.

[saltpoint]

21. Trump is pretty much having his way

with the GOP at the moment. Cruz upended him in Iowa, but Cruz doesn't look to be a factor in NH.

Most of this last week, I thought Rubio might ride an upward polling trend and defeat Trump in NH, but after last night, I just don't think it's going to happen for Rubio. Trump did kind of force him back to the script -- agree. Rubio looked and sounded discombobulated.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. Good.

Christie still isnt gonna get any support, he's just too much of an unlikeable thug (even for the GOP, amd that's saying something) but let him take down Rubio in the process.

A win win.

[saltpoint]

22. Yes. It's a plus for us. The more the GOP

is busy knifing each others' throats, the more likely their Cleveland convention will be an ugly scene.

It will be a big lift for many down-ballot Democrats if the nation is seeing Republicans in Cleveland in an alley fight.

[kydo]

14. Love that Traffic album

And your use of it is spot on.

[saltpoint]

23. I should apologize to Traffic --

I love the music also, and don't really think of them in association with Marco Rubio.

But it just seemed to fit the moment so I ripped off the title.

[11 Bravo]

39. One of my all-time favorites.

The percentage you're paying is too high priced
While you're living beyond all your means.
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
From the profit he's made on your dreams.

Just fucking brilliant!

[saltpoint]

41. Have to agree. Traffic is

loved by fans but IMO still underrated.

[KingCharlemagne]

46. All hail Stevie Winwood! - nt

[DCBob]

15. Yeah, Rubio was beginning to get some traction as the "reasonable" alternative to Trump and Cruz.

But now that's in doubt. I wonder if Bush will finally make a come back.

[saltpoint]

24. Good point. If Rubio collapses (as he

deserves to do after that debate performance last evening), it could mean a tunnel out of the dungeon for Jeb.

It would be worth celebrating if there was anybody else running in the GOP who was halfway human. But I look down their list of hopefuls and it remains one of the most macabre pack of fools and ghouls and grifters ever assembled.

[gratuitous]

27. Jeb! continues to bide his time

He's watched very quietly as Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina had their passing moments. Donald Trump continues to hang in there, but even some of his media pals are beginning to sound like he's gone stale. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are both getting the spotlight's red glare cast on them. Rubio may have flamed out, and Cruz is a truly unlikable person. Rubio will have difficulty recapturing momentum if he doesn't show well in New Hampshire. I anticipate Cruz will do okay in New Hampshire, about the same in South Carolina, but Nevada could prove a bridge too far.

As the Republican candidates each take their turn, Bush will continue to bump and stump along (it's not like he has anything else to do or a job to go to). He's a known, if unexciting, commodity, and may just slog through to the nomination.

[saltpoint]

35. Agree if Rubio doesn't do fairly well in NH

he will face a serious momentum problem.

Christie may have helped himself a little bit, although I wonder if people in NH would say, 'Well, the guy's right about Rubio, but he's still a jerk,' thinking of the young woman who asked him about not being in New Jersey after the storm.

I like it that almost any scenario there is for GOP outcomes in their primary, they all have the potential for a significant meltdown.

This is mostly a problem the Republican Party brought on itself. Let them enjoy the fruits of their extremely poor judgment.

[Monk06]

16. Two sons of Cuban refugees going on about the Founding Fathers like their relatives spent the winter

at Valley Forge

Meanwhile Don Trump the grandson of German and Scotish peasant immigrants wants to send 20 mllion Mexican immigrants and their kids back to Mexico on busses or cattle cars. What ever works but humane, you know. A guy who grew up in a mansion in Brooklyn

That's the GOP, all hat no cattle or military record or exerience outside politics or experience of discomfort let alone hardship Suburban cul de sac puppies with no talent but consumed by ambition

[saltpoint]

26. Strong talk and surgically precise, too.

Very fine comment, Monk06. It could (and should) be an opening of its own thread.

The Republicans these days (since Nixon? since Reagan?) have encouraged U.S. Americans to fear people different from them, conveniently forgetting that all of us came from somewhere, and our distant ancestors did too. Far enough back, we're all related and standing around a fire naked talking about that day's hunt.

"Cul de sac puppies" is a potent use of language. Very nicely chosen for current circumstances.

Some writers, probably a distinct minority, urge that the Stranger be welcomed, be clothed if naked, fed if hungry, and cared for in general. We haven't heard any such thing from the Republican party for decades, and it's worse now than ever.

[KingCharlemagne]

47. Your post is a veritable prose poem (or a stanza thereof), right

Up there with Whitman, Sandburg and Ginsburg.

"Suburban cul de sac puppies". That's going to stick around for awhile.

My sincerest compliments!

[saltpoint]

48. Seconded. eom

[Kentonio]

18. I'm really glad we almost certainly won't have to face Christie in the general

He's a thug and an asshole but he's also extremely dangerous. I really wouldn't want him as an opponent in a general debate.

[saltpoint]

37. A lot of people have made that assessment

of Christie, myself included, and I think it's fair and accurate. But he remains in the race, and he is potentially dangerous.

He's driven by his own aggression. I don't see the part of him -- if it exists at all, I mean -- that reaches high, that embraces some altruistic global problem-solving adulthood.

I see a pre-adolescent bully on the playground, making life difficult for others, operating under the radar of the monitors, and -- this is the really difficult part -- enjoying what he's doing.

[Atman]

30. After last night, media is already plotting Cristie's "comeback."

This is just like 2012. Everyone in the clown car gets to drive for a little while...before they settle on the establishment candidate, which will be Jeb?, just as it turned out to be Romney.

Christie had a strong performance last night, so now it's his turn to drive...although they'll have to push the seat in the clown car way back, and raise the steering wheel.

[Laxman]

38. Christie Himself Has Been Plotting....

his comeback. He is a very patient person, despite what his public persona might indicate. He can float along on Ken Langone's money and having the taxpayers of NJ fund his travels & security for at least another month. Meanwhile, the clown car will empty out. Christie's betting that he will be the last clown driving-and that's not an entirely unreasonable expectation. Do not dismiss him easily. He is dangerous. He's counting on being the alternative to Trump when the music stops and the carnival leaves town. All I can say is Danger Will Robinson! He's survived this laundry list of transgressions (Christie Crime Digest) so far- he's not going to go away quietly or easily.

[saltpoint]

40. If one of the other GOP candidates

wanted to get in a dig on Christie (and assuming both would be in contention after New Hampshire), an ad could be created showing two people in the front seat of a car.

They're in New Jersey. Traffic is backed up.

One asks the other if she's decided on whom to vote in the Republican primary. The other says "Not yet. How about you?"

"Not really. I still need to think it over. What is it with this damn traffic anyway?"

(the camera pans out, showing several lanes of traffic jammed. Horns are honking. A few people are standing outside their vehicles looking pissed off.)

The two in the front seat continue to talk about the primary.

At the end of the ad, the camera pans up, showing vivid orange cones closing off lanes to the George Washington Bridge, then swings back to show the traffic backed up. No dialogue, just car horns honking.

[Laxman]

44. Most People Don't Get It....

to them Bridgegate was just a traffic jam. A lot of noise about an inconvenience. The fact that it was about intimidation, abuse of power, callous indifference to the needs of the public, deception and hubris is lost. So is the fact that it is part of a much larger pattern of behavior from Christie. Port Authority money, managing pension funds, Sandy relief money and so much more were all just spoils to be divided up by King Christie to burnish his image and move his personal ambitions forward. He's a sociopath-vindictive, mean, calculating, and evil-also extraordinarily charming when he needs to be.

[saltpoint]

45. Laxman, after reading that comment,

I'm afraid we must tell you that you are not free to leave this site until you post it as the foundation of its own thread.

Just an excellent summary of the skullduggery New Jersey's governor is visiting upon his state's citizens.

Thank you for that. Please consider an independent post.

[Madam Mossfern]

42. After reading responses to the debate in NJ

The majority of republicans think that Kasich was the best. Don't be surprised if he rises in the polls. True, he's not as exciting as the others, but the better in the long run to face the Democratic opposition. He is more likely to attract unaffiliated voters than the fiery Republican candidates.

If it's Kasich against Clinton, Kasich wins IMHO.

[saltpoint]

43. You hit a GOP nerve, because after

Rubio did so poorly last evening, "sensible Republicans" (whatever in god's name I even mean by that) may find themselves in the market for a candidate.

And this 48 hours or so before the votin' commences in NH.

If they were leaning toward Rubio, and feel he was mashed flat by Christie last night, do they go to Kasich? Bush? Or what? It's a delicious mess for the Republicans to be in.

Kasich may profit from Rubio's debate flop, but word around is that Kasich has no field operations in other states, or none to speak of. Can he win Nevada or South Carolina? I have no idea.

The more uncertainty there is to the GOP primary field, the greater the odds for significant blue gains in the general, up and down the ballot. That's my strong hope.

[mercuryblues]

50. it reminds of

I'm rubber
you're glue
What ever you say
bounces off me and sticks to you

[Zambero]

51. No there there

Or anywhere. Rubio is a wind-up doll who delivers the same tired set of talking points regardless of the question at hand.

[saltpoint]

52. He's got to be very apprehensive about

the result Tuesday evening. I don't think he's going to like them much.

He was riding a tall wave, looking fairly good for several days there. Then he hit the shoals at Christie Island.

[thereismore]

53. I still think it will be Rubio in the end. They think he appeals to Latinos. nt

[saltpoint]

54. It's possible. My first choice is that

the NH results are so close and chaotic that the Republican candidates all erupt in a bruising shouting match.

And that no one of them get any "momentum" from the results.

[Samantha]

55. My Republican brother in Florida is supporting Rubio and asked me what I thought

I simply said, "Rubio has zero depth." My brother asked me what that meant....

Recommended your thread, saltpoint. Always a pleasure to see you posting.

Sam

[saltpoint]

56. Sam, thank you, and it goes without

saying that I'm glad you have more political sense than your brother.

"Zero depth" is exactly correct.

Your brother may have to find another candidate after tomorrow evening's New Hampshire totals roll in. I don't think Rubio is going to have as good an evening as he might have hoped for.