NASHUA — [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore] picked a bad night to have a bad debate. Coming out of Iowa (where he finished a strong third), he had all the momentum. New Hampshire was his opportunity to “own” the establishment lane, and turn this race into a de facto three-man contest (with Cruz and Trump dividing up the outsider vote). The only thing standing in his way was an ABC debate on Saturday night. And here, I think, Rubio might have missed this golden opportunity.
The problem with what happened to Rubio is that it was so transparently obvious that he was repeating talking points. This mattered because it confirmed Chris Christie’s criticism of Rubio as someone who is “scripted” and gives “memorized” speeches.
Had Rubio made the same point thrice it might not have been so bad, but he used almost the exact same language (“Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing”), which made it painfully obvious. What is more, during one example, Christie interjected: “There it is!” This was sort of like when Reagan said, “There he goes again.” Everyone knew the jig was up.
The other problem with this is that it undermines Rubio’s very strength. It’s one thing to attack someone’s weakness, but when you attack their strength, it is especially damaging. Rubio has always been thought of as an eloquent speaker, but what happens now if every time we hear him rattle off an impressive rhetorical flourish, we have a thought in the back of his head about whether or not this is just some memorized schtick? I don’t want to make too much out of this—maybe Rubio will do great in New Hampshire and all will be forgotten—but this does have potential to become one of those defining moments in political history.
New Hampshire could have been a clarifying moment for the GOP. Now, I suspect, the race will continue to be jumbled.
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S.E. Cupp recently interviewed me about my new book Too Dumb to Fail for CSPAN2’s “BookTV.” You can watch it here.