The Trump/Cruz double team makes Marco Rubio look good by comparison, but the thing is, he's not good. https://t.co/zZF8bovDHb
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) February 2, 2016
Rubio fundraising email will amuse his rivals: "The media and the establishment had written me off weeks ago, but we proved them wrong."
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) February 2, 2016
Wrote him off on their taxes as a business expense, maybe. https://t.co/rki9CyjIIQ
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) February 2, 2016
Good @DraperRobert piece on Rubio's grand strategy: https://t.co/j179DuH2Tx
— Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber) February 1, 2016
From the NYTimes article:
In the final days before today’s Iowa caucus, the campaign staff of the Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio worked furiously to quash a scurrilous story line about their candidate that had been circulating among the Washington commentariat. The damaging rumor in question was that Rubio — who for weeks has been considered Iowa’s likely third-place finisher, behind Ted Cruz and Donald Trump — was in fact closing in on Cruz and likely to place second…
… [N]o one has worked harder to keep expectations lower than the high-energy Rubio. Going into today’s caucus, as one member of Rubio’s team put it: “the best Cruz can do is what everybody expected him to do. The worst we’re going to do is a strong third, and that looks like a big success for us.” Rubio’s aides perversely relish the fact that, as one of them told me, “Marco is every voter’s second choice.” Rubio has spent far less money on television ads than his former mentor Jeb Bush. His crowds have been large, but nothing on the order of Trump’s gladiatorial throngs. In Iowa, Rubio — who tends to ramble and look rundown when pushed beyond his physical limits — has not tried to match Cruz’s marathon slog through all of Iowa’s 99 counties, instead focusing on about 20 of the most densely populated among them. And Rubio has spent comparatively little time attacking the two front-runners. His campaign has embraced what seems to be the most risk-averse strategy in the Republican field, one that is in fact filled with risks despite its basic logic…
This side-by-side comparison of Rubio last night and Obama's 2008 Iowa victory speech will blow your mind: https://t.co/yO7gP41mkq
— Jeremy W. Peters (@jwpetersNYT) February 2, 2016
Except Obama won. Just saying… https://t.co/lgxnTryWEQ
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) February 2, 2016
Imagine Little Mister ‘Don’t Push Me’ trying to debate either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Halfway through the first hour, he’ll be whining for a juice box and a nap.
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Apart from deploring the low quality of our opposition, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Open Thread: Young Marco, <em>Still</em> Not Ready for Prime Time…Post + Comments (114)