New York Times
By Alexander Burnes
February 26, 2016
It
was the messiest and most confrontational debate of the Republican
presidential primary, repeatedly descending into free-for-alls of cross
talk and name-calling.
And for Donald J. Trump’s opponents, it may have been the best debate of the race.
With
the Super Tuesday primaries next week, Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and
Marco Rubio of Florida finally laced into Mr. Trump, battering him for
his business deals, his
thin knowledge of policy and what they characterized as his political
opportunism.
The
debate revealed the acute urgency each candidate now feels in making
his case, and captured how Mr. Trump’s opponents are approaching what
may be their last really
good chance to slow his political momentum.
We haven’t hit bottom yet
Even
by the standards of 2016, this was a nasty debate. Mr. Trump has set
the standard for personal vitriol in the campaign, and he lived up to it
in Houston, mocking
Mr. Rubio as a clumsy “choke artist” and once again calling Mr. Cruz a
liar to his face.
After
Mr. Cruz referred to someone as a “crazy zealot,” Mr. Trump leveled a
literal schoolyard taunt, and asked if Mr. Cruz had been talking about
himself.
But
for once, Mr. Trump’s opponents reciprocated — especially Mr. Rubio.
The Florida senator caricatured Mr. Trump as a dunce on policy who
repeats five canned lines over
and over, and said that Mr. Trump would have amounted to little without
inheriting a fortune from his father.
Should
the race ever narrow to just Mr. Trump and either Mr. Rubio or Mr.
Cruz, it could showcase a level of raw political violence unlike any
recent presidential primary
campaign.
With Trump, what you see is what you get
Mr.
Trump has assumed an imposing front-runner’s position, achieving the
kind of political stature that might prompt another candidate to reach
for the dignity and gravitas
Americans typically expect from a president.
Not
him. His sales pitch has evolved little since the day he began his
campaign, and he made no effort Thursday night to project the
comportment or depth of knowledge
that voters view as presidential.
Challenged
on health care, Mr. Trump reiterated a vague set of promises to replace
the Affordable Care Act by making “many plans” available to consumers.
When Mr. Rubio
suggested that Mr. Trump lacked an understanding of peace negotiations
in Israel, Mr. Trump insisted, “A deal is a deal.”
Mr.
Trump’s supporters may be indifferent to his limitations as a
candidate, but his obvious discomfort handling policy questions and his
apparent unwillingness — or inability
— to elaborate on his ideas, may further unsettle Republicans already
concerned about his capacity to compete in a general election.
Rubio and Cruz figured out how to attack
Mr.
Trump’s opponents have struggled to make a sustained case against him,
experimenting with a range of punchy attack lines that failed to stick.
A
different dynamic governed Thursday’s debate. As Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz
assailed him, they often used similar or even identical language and
themes. After Mr. Rubio
attacked Mr. Trump for having paid a hefty fine for hiring illegal
workers, Mr. Cruz took up the same set of facts as a cudgel. Both men
raised the issue of Trump University, a defunct educational company over
which Mr. Trump is currently being sued.
Their
shared purpose was to question Mr. Trump’s credentials and alarm voters
about his vulnerabilities in a general election. “They’re going to pick
apart his taxes,”
Mr. Cruz said of the Democrats. “They’re going to pick apart his
business deals.”
Citing
the Trump University lawsuit, Mr. Cruz asked voters to imagine “the
Republican nominee on the stand in court, being cross-examined about
whether he committed fraud.”
Mr.
Trump responded by talking over his rivals, but he will certainly have
to address the issues they raised, either now, or as the Republican
nominee.
Likable Rubio vs. lawyerly Cruz
Mr.
Rubio and Mr. Cruz are both first-term senators who were elected by
running to the right in Republican primaries. Both promise to be the
first Hispanic presidential
nominee.
Both
have also improved as political athletes over the duration of this
race. But they have settled into sharply contrasting styles that were on
vivid display in Houston.
Mr.
Cruz is cool and clinical, laying out his facts in a lawyerly manner
and rarely flashing humor or emotion. He knows exactly how he wants to
sell himself to voters,
as a candidate of uncompromising ideological purity.
Mr.
Rubio is animated and aggressive, speaking quickly and playing
deliberately to the in-house audience. He projects an appealing
personality without necessarily articulating
an explicit case for his election as president.
For
Republicans not sold on Mr. Trump, these are the main alternatives
available to them, and Tuesday’s nominating contests may help resolve
which man’s approach will
be the final point of contrast with Mr. Trump.
Kasich looks past Super Tuesday
Gov.
John Kasich of Ohio has seemed to campaign almost in his own political
dimension throughout the 2016 race. He has deliberately wooed moderates
and independent voters,
and has freely acknowledged that the next state he believes he has any
chance of winning is Michigan, which does not vote until March 8.
In
the debate, Mr. Kasich held fast. He did not attack other candidates,
and when asked directly whether his opponents understood how to reach
Hispanic voters, Mr. Kasich
shot back, “I’m not going to talk about that.”
With
some of the most conservative states voting on Tuesday — including
Alabama and Oklahoma — Mr. Kasich continued to tailor his pitch to
voters closer to the center.
Breaking with conservative orthodoxy, he said that businesses should
not receive religious exemptions based on their proprietors’ views on
gay marriage.
When
he was asked about deporting undocumented immigrants en masse, he cited
a Reagan-era compromise as a model of immigration policy. That law
included an amnesty provision
for people who entered the country illegally.
Mr.
Kasich believes he has a path forward through moderate and liberal
states in the Midwest and Northeast, and that his fortunes will improve
later in the primary calendar.
Even so, he appears to have accepted that he will first have to
withstand a wave of losses.
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