It was a defining moment as Rubio’s opponents successfully turned two of his greatest strengths — his eloquence and message discipline — against him in the final debate before the New Hampshire primary, casting the Florida senator as a lightweight leader who has been lifted by little more than lofty and canned rhetoric.
.. [Cruz] advocated for “carpet-bombing” but promised incongruously that it would be “targeted,” as well.
“Kill the enemy and then get the heck out,” Cruz summarized his international doctrine.
Ahead of N.H. primary, questions for Rubio, Trump and Cruz
A few weeks ago, it appeared as though there was something between acceptance and resignation within the GOP establishment about the possibility of a Trump nomination. Today there is considerable resistance to his candidacy among those elites and many rank-and-file Republicans.
.. Given the choice between Trump and Cruz, in a hypothetical two-person final for the nomination, Cruz trounced Trump by 53 percent to 35 percent.
.. Cruz offered a lawyerly defense of his campaign’s actions, blaming media reporting for the mistake. He also apologized to Carson. But the low-key retired neurosurgeon sliced apart Cruz’s defense with a quiet but deadly response that completely undermined the senator’s argument.
Cruz’s goal has been to consolidate the entire conservative coalition — evangelicals, tea party activists and the smaller pool of libertarians. Getting into a fight with Carson won’t help him do that.
Donald Trump Stands by As His Debate Rivals Hit One Another
It was an odd mistake, on Cruz’s part, to tell a lie in front of the person whose abeyance on this issue he needs if he is to move on, especially since Carson, who is usually somewhat cryptic, had hurt written on his face.
.. The other candidates seem to have become franchisees of Trump’s brand of personal attack. He just sits back and collects the political equivalent of licensing fees. What may be more damaging to the G.O.P. is that Trump’s ideology seems to have been franchised as well. The hyper-nationalism, the insinuations of treachery at the highest level of government, the disdain for civil rights and international accords, the fetishizing of military force, and the raw bigotry—all have somehow become part of the Republican Party’s normal back-and-forth.
.. Rubio’s talking point, for example, was striking in its repetition, but all the more so in its content. When he said that Obama knew what he was doing, he meant that “all this damage that he’s done to America is deliberate. This is a President that’s trying to redefine this country.”
.. Cruz said that he would, although he thought that the torturers should be senior people—those at “low levels” handled it badly.
What You Missed in the Debate
• After Mr. Cruz said he would not implement waterboarding “in any sort of widespread use,” Mr. Trump made clear he would not hesitate to turn to the practice often — and then some. “I would bring back waterboarding, and I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” Mr. Trump said.
.. “He continues to put out this fiction that there’s widespread systematic discrimination against Muslim-Americans,” Mr. Rubio said.
.. Mr. Cruz boasted in his closing statement that he won Iowa despite opposing an ethanol mandate that his peers defended, casting himself as the candidate best positioned to take on Washington. Mr. Trump could not resist a dig, alluding to the Texas senator’s tactics in Iowa. “That’s because he got Ben Carson’s votes, by the way,” Mr. Trump said.