Rubio and Cruz Hit Trump but He Hit Them Right Back

As I noted in my post last night, because of that the whole thing was mostly a wash.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/02/rubio-is-only-politician-trump-didnt.html

I liked Trump's line about not funding Rubio. He ought to use that: 'I fund everyone but not Marco. He sent me his book and he tried very hard but I knew he was a bad risk. Six years later it's the best money I ever didn't spend.'

I agree with Josh Voorhes here:

"Donald Trump got hit from all sides on Thursday night. Ted Cruz painted the architect of the Great Wall of Trump as the financier of the Gang of Eight immigration bill conservatives loathe. Marco Rubio portrayed the real estate tycoon as a huckster who would be selling knockoff Rolexes on the street if not for his family’s money. And CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and his fellow moderators questioned the winner of the past three nominating contests over everything from his unreleased tax returns to his horrendous polling numbers among Hispanics."

"Trump, though, remained largely calm throughout the night, giving nearly as good as he got during two-plus hours on the Houston stage. He didn’t win every individual skirmish, but with more likely victories awaiting him on Super Tuesday, he won enough to leave Texas in the same position that he arrived: as the clear front-runner."

I think the idea that the kind of lead he has in these states can be made up in one debate was overstated coming in anyway.

There has been so much made on the Democratic side about not having enough debates but at some point, you have so many debates, they start to run into each other. Not every one of them is going to be hugely impactful.

Josh Marshall who is so often on the same wave length I am on these things:

"Let's state the point clearly: Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz failed utterly to put a dent in Donald Trump or his seemingly clear path to the Republican nomination. In their defense, it was a huge challenge. If Trump does as well on Tuesday as the current polls suggest, he will likely be unstoppable. Not necessarily because the numbers will make him inevitable but because the pageantry of winning will continue to elevate Trump and overwhelm Rubio and Cruz. To prevent that, one or the other needed to land a devastating blow - something on the level of what Chris Christie did to Rubio before New Hampshire. Frankly, it needed to be even worse. They didn't come close."

"This isn't to say they didn't land some punches. Early in the debate Rubio surfaced a number of scandals that could potentially be very damaging to Trump. I think the "Trump University" scam is ultimately the most damning - a clownishly crooked scam that exploited people who didn't have a lot of money but bet it all on Trump's razzmatazz. He also landed some hits on Trump's inability to say anything specific about his health care plans other than allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines - a tired nostrum the only practical effect of which is to end all regulation of health care insurance and make the system wildly more unfair than it was before. Still, I don't think any of these attacks mattered much. The only thing to emerge from the debate which I think could possibly hurt Trump was entirely self-inflicted: his announcement that he can't release his tax returns because he's in the midst of a multi-year IRS audit - a point which is both nonsensical on its face and highly problematic from any politician operating in the gravity universe. I think there was little follow-up from the moderators because they were simply gobsmacked by what Trump was saying and couldn't think of how to respond."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-s-dominating-performance

Of course, the awkward thing about the tax returns is the charge is being led by a guy-Mitt Romney-who never released his own tax returns. As Harry Reid pointed out yesterday, all he released was a summary.

The Trump University and audit thing won't have any impact I don't believe. It may have an impact-in the general.

Then all the things I'm saying won't have an impact, me and other Dems will be talking about every day. But in the GOP primary it won't.

"It was a bad development for the Democrats that Rubio managed to slip into second place in South Carolina. For a moment it seemed that his arrested ascent in New Hampshire might be on again. Perhaps a cleared field could put him into a drawn-out but winning race with Trump. But in a million tiny ways in the week since South Carolina that illusion has melted away. Rubio can't even clearly get into second place vis a vis Cruz, who shows absolutely no signs of dropping out. Why should he? He's doing better in his home state vis a vis Trump than Rubio is. Meanwhile, Kasich and Carson are there to sop up votes. The simple truth is that the idea that all the people not currently supporting Trump are actually opposed to Trump is nonsense and defies everything we know about politics."

"Sure, most of Bush's supporters will go to Rubio or Kasich. But not all. Trump will get a good chunk of them too. The same with Kasich's and Carson's supporters and certainly Cruz's. Pundits and campaign operatives in denial think in schematic terms. Bush is the anti-Trump and vice versa. So Trump won't get any of Bush's support. But it's never so clear cut. The nature of a campaign at this point is a ratification effect where subsequent primaries tend to ratify the nomination of the person the party seems to be choosing. The only oddity of this race is that actual Republican voters are choosing a candidate who horrifies most professional Republicans. But they're are choosing him nonetheless."

"The truth is that no nominee actually goes over 50% when a race is still on-going, certainly not when there are five candidates in the race. Not ever. Look at any remotely comparable primary campaign. And yet since South Carolina there are a number of states where Trump is getting close to it. This is not over. But the idea that the winnowing of the field will consolidate anti-Trump voters around a single candidate who will perforce beat him is nonsense. 'Momentum' isn't really a thing. The ratification effect is. And for now, Trump has it."

Thank you. This 'He's nowhere near 50 percent thing' is the dumbest thing around. It was being said when there were 17 candidates in the race. How many of Romney's early primary victories came with over 50 percent of the vote?

Meanwhile, he got close to 50 percent in Nevada and has close to it in Massachusetts.

As for Rubio, this is a guy down 16 points in his home state. At least Ted Cruz looks like he might win Texas.