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Well, yeah. He kinda did. All candidates have memorized responses to different questions or challenges. It's part of the debate prep, and generally makes the difference between a politician who looks polished and one who's standing at the podium stammering "uh... Ah..." while trying to form the words for an answer. This is normally not an issue because usually the same question or challenge does not come up more than once or twice in a debate. Someone asks a question or call you out on something, you give your prepared answer, and the debate moves on. Usually, what you're trying to do in a debate is cover as much ground as possible so as to find something that the other guy hasn't prepped on, so you can make him do the "um... ah..." thing.

What Christie did is ask the same question 5 times (technically, made the same allegation that Rubio isn't a good choice because he is just a first term Senator, and Obama was, and look how that worked out). Rubio's answer was to that specific allegation. What he didn't catch, which is totally on him, is that Christie would repeat the same allegation several times, to which Rubio gave the same response, not realizing that this was the "trick" Christie was playing.

What Rubio should have done on repetition 3, when Christie made the point that Rubio was repeating the same canned response, was that he is giving the same response because Christie keeps repeating the same false allegation. Perhaps follow it up with speculation as to why Christie might do this. Maybe he didn't hear or understand the response the first 2 times, but I'll give it to you again, and if you ask the same question again, well... What do we say about people who keep doing the same thing and expecting different results? This points the audience's attention at Christie repeating the same question, and away from Rubio repeating the same answer, and at that point forward, if Christie does it again, you just deflect by pointing out that *he's* "doing it again".

His inexperience was not realizing what Christie was doing and turning it around. That's bad on him. But that does not change the fact that what Christie did was basically single Rubio out for doing something that every other candidate does. They all have canned statements that they make. Over and over. These are phrases and paragraphs that they put into their stump speeches. They modify these over time based on crowd response. It's part of polishing your message. Everyone does it. Any reporter could play a loop of stump speeches and hang this on any candidate in the race if they wanted to.

But yes, perception is reality, and that's what Rubio got wrong. Again, doesn't change that Christie was playing a bit dirty with that one, and frankly he didn't help himself. He just hurt Rubio and further muddled the race.



Yup. This was Christie pulling another Sandy. Doing something that he thought was good for him, but ultimately is bad for the party. Eh... Again though, this is probably a lesson that Rubio needs to learn. Then again, it's quite possible that had Christie done this to anyone in the field, they might have fallen for it too. Hard to say. Bush? Maybe not. Cruz? Almost certainly. That man's a walking bumper sticker. Trump? Probably not, since he mostly just fires from the hip anyway. Carson? Absolutely. Kasich? Probably. Point being that this was an attack that likely would have worked on anyone it's used on. Once. And Christie chose to use it at the moment that would most result in further stretching out the process of the GOP support flowing to a mainstream candidate, and probably increasing significantly the odds that Trump becomes the nominee.

And along the way, he didn't help himself at all. So... dumb move.



Eh. It's New Hampshire though. Yes, I know that conventionally it's pretty accurate at determining eventual nominees, but that's when the field consists of folks all within some range of "mainstream". I suspect that there's a fair amount of nutty independent voters there that will leap to someone outside that mainstream if it comes along. They just don't normally get the chance to do that. I don't think the same works in SC, or NV, or most of the states coming up. At least, I hope to god not.

Well see though. What is that old saying/curse? "May you live in interesting times".

gbaji, having watched it, the point was it wasn't about the factual accuracy / quality of Rubio's answer to Christie's attack - the Republican debate is a moronic poo-flinging contest from start to finish, no one could possibly gain any material insight from it and there's no lucid or informed discussion because it's a beauty pageant not a debate about issues. It's all show, soundbites, and a bunch of gorilla-like men puffing up their chests and making out *they're* the big man to keep the tribe safe. Rubio's problem is that Christie attacked him, repeatedly, and he wasn't able to respond and counter-attack effectively but instead got stuck like a broken record player. The people watching, desperate to understand who the new leader of the pack is, sensed that Christie is the big man. That's all that matters.

Christie is out, and he took a bite out of someone who is proving to be completely unqualified ... which isn't saying much considering the whole field.

Can we refer to Eduardo Rafael Cruz by his God given name?

I like the part where he says "he's not stupid, he's secretly trying to change America."

I mean damn dude, did you crack the code by finding an old Obama "Change we can believe in" bumper sticker on the back of the Constitution. Great detective work there, gumshoe.

Edited, Feb 11th 2016 1:20pm by Timelordwho

"He's trying to make America like the rest of the world." he says. You mean America might stop being ***-backwards if Obama had his way? For ***** sake give this man a third term. (Actually, no. I'd be happy to see a new president who won't try to appease the Republicans so much, because fuck them.)

An excellent atribute for a President of the United States, yes?

Christie's been busy since 2010's Florida senate run then.

Huh? Are you attempting to claim that Rubio has been viewed in the past as a candidate who relies too much on memorized sound bites? What's funny is that Rubio is actually viewed the exact opposite. One of the reasons for his fast rise is that he's someone who can just sit and speak about an issue without sounding like he's rattling off a memorized bit. It's one of the things I think I may have mentioned sometime last year as one of my concerns about his run. He has been seen as a guy who understands the issues well, but criticized for *not* being very polished in his speaking. He always came off as an earnest young guy but not yet ready for the big time, not because he doesn't get the issues and have good positions, but because he doesn't come off as professional enough.

One of the reasons I started thinking Rubio had a shot this time, was being pleasantly surprised that when he came into the first couple debates he did appear much more polished and more "presidential", if you will. Which is why the allegations Christie leveled at him were so strange initially. And it's possible that's why Rubio didn't catch on to what Christie was doing until too late. Rubio *knows* that he has no problem understanding the issues and being able to speak about them off the cuff, but he does have a problem with being a bit too conversational, and speaking in ways that assume the audience (usually an interviewer) understands the issue and language he's using to describe it. He had a problem with mass appeal because he wasn't speaking the language that audiences find appealing. Which, in case you are confused, is the very kinds of quickly rattled off memorized sound bites that make a candidate look like he's more knowledgeable about a topic than his opponent in a debate setting.

This kind of language is almost certainly what Rubio's team had to coach him into using. So yeah. He didn't expect to be attacked for doing it as he was. We can certainly talk about how he should have picked up on the trap Christie set. But let's not pretend that he actually does have a problem with being able to speak without using memorized language. Because that's actually his strong suit. The problem is that this is not actually what audiences want their candidates to do, nor what makes them walk away from viewing a debate with a positive impression of a candidate. A bit of a catch-22, isn't it?

You should read or something. I said that Rubio's lack of a record and fears of an empty suit has kept major "establishment" style donors from lining up behind him. No, I don't care enough to find cites so you can say "But that blog doesn't count and that one is liberal media and that one is..."

I was speaking more specifically about the GOP side (although Obama vs Clinton probably qualifies as well) but Sanders has extraordinary circumstances working in his favor there. If you need to take "a well liked, popular regional figure did well there" and turn that into "So that means it's okay that Trump did too!" then I guess I can't stop you. Have fun with the delusion.

Well, hell, it was at the top of a Google search so here's a cite for Gbaji to pick apart and say it doesn't count and no one ever thought of Rubio as inexperienced and unready until mean ole' Christie picked on poor little Rubio...

Makes about as much sense as your other predictions.