Poor Marco Rubio. At the vital moment, he seems to fluff his lines. In the final months of 2015, America’s lumpencommentariat kept predicting ‘Marco’s moment’. For months, such talk sounded like nothing but hype. Then the Iowa caucuses happened, and Rubio finished a much-stronger-expected third. Finally, his time seemed to have come. Rubio emerged as the pragmatic choice; the man to prick the Trump bubble; the man to knock out Ted Cruz. The Republican establishment had their man. Phew!
Then came last night’s big debate in New Hampshire — and Rubio was awful. As expected, Chris Christie — a failing candidate with nothing to lose — went after him in the early exchanges. Rubio seemed ill-prepared, even a bit scared. “You have never been involved in making a consequential decision where you had to be held accountable,” barked Christie, aiming his best Tony Soprano glare at the junior senator from Florida. “And the fact is that when you talk about your Hezbollah sanctions act, you weren’t even there to vote for it … That’s not leadership, that’s truancy.’
Christie, the two-term New Jersey governor, needled Rubio over his immaturity as a politician, not-so-subtly hinting at that ‘Republican Obama’ tag — a description that was once meant to flatter Rubio, but which now haunts him. “Rubio … simply does not have the experience to be president of the United States and make these decisions,” said Christie. “We’ve watched it happen, everybody. For the last seven years, the people of New Hampshire are smart. Do not make the same mistake again.”
Christie appeared to have pushed a button in Rubio’s head marked ‘Distance self from Obama’. ‘Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing,’ Rubio replied. ‘He knows exactly what he’s doing.’ Christie shot back that Rubio was merely regurgitating his stump speech. To which Rubio responded: ‘Here’s the bottom line. This notion that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing is just not true. He knows exactly what he’s doing.’
Christie repeated that Rubio was repeating. So Rubio, like a robot gone wrong, repeated again: ‘We are not facing a president that doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows what he is doing. That’s why he’s done the things he’s done …’
It was awkward. In total, he said the same line four times. He didn’t look like an election winner, to put it mildly. As the debate went on, Rubio regained his footing. He finished strongly with a passionate defence of his opposition to abortion. But by then it was too late. He had had his shocker. He had shown once again what a deeply flawed candidate he is. He may look polished, but he is not accomplished. He isn’t comfortable thinking on his feet. (Actually in that respect, he is quite similar to Obama.)
Rubio lost, then, but who won? Well, the governors — Christie, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush — all did ok. But since the three of them are each bumping along at less than ten per cent in the polls, their performances don’t matter too much, at the moment anyway. Kasich might do well in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, but it’s hard to see his candidacy sustaining itself.
Ted Cruz, the winner in Iowa, didn’t make any bad slips. He is the most skilled debater among the remaining candidates. The winner, however, was probably Donald Trump, who put in his best TV debate performance so far. He swatted away Jeb Bush on a couple of occasions, and dissed Cruz effectively. Barring one or two weird moments — and hey, nobody really seems to mind those — he seemed more mature than usual, almost statesmanlike. Which was odd.
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