MANCHESTER, N.H. — Knowing the end of their presidential campaigns could come with a poor showing here on Tuesday, some of the Republicans running for the White House threw what looked like Hail Mary passes at the final debate before the New Hampshire primary.
The most obvious example of this during the ABC News-sponsored debate came from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who repeatedly attacked Florida Sen. [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore] in an attempt to slow down his recent momentum in the race.
“You have not been involved in a consequential decision where you had to be held accountable,” Christie told Rubio during one of his attacks. “You just simply haven’t.”
Rubio reciprocated by saying that “under Chris Christie’s governorship of New Jersey, they’ve been downgraded nine times in their credit rating. This country already has a debt problem, we don’t need to add to it by electing someone who has experience at running up and destroying the credit rating of his state.”
Rubio then went on to say that when he’s elected, America “will become once again, the single greatest nation in the history of the world, not the disaster Barack Obama has imposed upon us.”
Christie shot back at Rubio: “You see, everybody, I want the people at home to think about this. That’s what Washington, D.C. does. The drive-by shot at the beginning with incorrect and incomplete information and then the memorized 25-second speech that is exactly what his advisers gave him.”
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who like Christie needs a strong showing in New Hampshire, also argued Rubio isn’t ready to be president. “Marco Rubio is a gifted, gifted politician, and he may have the skills to be a President of the United States, but we’ve tried it the old way with Barack Obama, with soaring eloquence and we didn’t get a leader.”
But Bush was most aggressive against frontrunner Donald Trump on the issue of eminent domain. “What Donald Trump did was use eminent domain to try to take the property of an elderly woman on the strip in Atlantic City,” Bush said. “That is not public purpose, that is down right wrong.”
Trump, as he has done in prior debates when Bush went after him, replied with condescension.
“Jeb wants to be — he wants to be a tough guy tonight,” he said. “I didn’t take the property.”
Pressed on whether he is at odds with his party on immigration, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has focused most of his campaign in New Hampshire, doubled down on his views, vowing to implement a path to legalization for illegal immigrants in 100 days once president.
“I think at the end of the day, that Americans would support a plan like this,” he said. “I think Congress would pass a plan to finish the border, guest worker, pay a fine, a path to legalization, and not citizenship. And we’ve got to get this done. And I will tell you this, within the first 100 days that I am president, I will put that proposal to the Congress. And I will tell you, as a former Congressman, and an executive, in Ohio, I can promise you that I believe you’ll get the votes to pass that, and we can move on with that issue and protect our border. That’s what I think.”
Former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, upset over his fourth place finish in Iowa, expressed his disgust at [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore]’s staffers who spread false rumors on the night of the Iowa caucuses that Carson would be dropping out of the presidential race so his supporters should get behind the Texas senator.
“It gives us a very good example of certain types of Washington ethics,” Carson said of the episode. “Washington ethics. Washington ethics basically says, if it’s legal, you do what you need to do in order to win. That’s not my ethics. My ethics is, you do what’s right.”
Cruz apologized to Carson, but defended his campaign by saying they were passing along information based off of reporting from CNN that Carson was flying directly to his home in Florida after the Iowa caucuses — and not to New Hampshire.
“When this transpired,” Cruz said, “I apologized to him then and I do so now: Ben, I’m sorry.”
CNN released a statement saying Cruz’s remarks about them are false: “The Cruz campaign’s actions the night of the Iowa caucuses had nothing to do with CNN’s reporting. The fact that Senator Cruz continues to knowingly mislead the voters about this is astonishing.”
Carson’s campaign chairman told The Daily Caller on the campus of Saint Anselm College, where the debate was held, that Carson plans to stay in the race until at least the Republican National Convention, regardless of how he continues to do in the primaries.
“Just so there’s nobody mistaken, Ben Carson is in it for the long haul,” Bob Dees, the chairman of the Carson campaign, said. “We expect to be standing in Cleveland — one form or another.”