As Marco Rubio moves up, GOP field gets more competitive — and muddled
Look ahead after Wednesday’s testy debate among the 10 main Republican presidential candidates and a few stark story lines emerge about their 2016 campaigns.
The surge of Marco Rubio is real, the deflation of Donald Trump continues and Jeb Bush’s apparent death spiral has become the latest media obsession.
The GOP race in some ways is getting more competitive which, given the size of the field, also means it’s becoming more muddled. Voters in the party eventually want to find the right candidate who could have a legitimate chance at winning the White House next November.
That’s a long time away, though, so it’s still likely that several top-tier candidates in the GOP race will take turns moving up and down in public opinion polls as voters sort through their qualifications.
Rubio’s strong debate performance will give him a shot of credibility with many on-the-fence Republicans, but don’t overlook the fact that Ted Cruz — a guy who’s been hanging around on the upper fringes of the race — also will attract more attention after his credible showing.
On the flip side, besides Bush’s dismal outlook after yet another pedestrian debate, the campaigns of Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul seem destined for permanent also-ran status.
Most notably, the factually challenged Fiorina has been unable to recapture the momentum she earned in the first debate. While Christie scored points with some media observers of the debate, he’s still way down in the polls and hardly a likable figure even among many GOP voters.
Finally, while Ben Carson is attracting positive voter attention in Iowa and some national polls, he still has done little in the debates or on the campaign trail to deliver credible public policies he would pursue as president. His recent statements on the future of Medicaid and Medicare under his presidency underscore his slippery grasp on multitrillion-dollar obligations of the federal government.
The rise of Rubio’s candidacy is occurring partly because, as he demonstrated Wednesday, the senator from Florida has an earnest-sounding approach to broad public policies to go with deft speaking skills. He seems to have an uncanny ability to successfully play down questions about his personal financial decisions, for example, as he appeals instead for Americans to look at his stands on national issues that matter to them.
Bush seems flummoxed too often. At the debate, he legitimately attacked Rubio’s Senate attendance record, though voters likely won’t care. Bush was mocked for the silliness of mentioning his fantasy football prowess. Bush did little to destroy the narrative that he’s a low-energy candidate, and his front-runner status among the Republican establishment seems like a story from ancient times. As impossible as it once might have seemed, a number of GOP officials now think he could be one of the next candidates to drop out.
Trump is finding that simply mocking fellow candidates and bellowing about building a wall to keep Mexicans out of the United States aren’t substantial long-term campaign strategies. When he’s a bit more subdued, as he was Wednesday, Trump loses the opportunity to blurt out a comment or two that might resonate for him in the future. Like Carson, Trump continues to struggle to put forward coherent ideas about what he actually might do if elected president — which after Wednesday looks like a longer shot, despite his current high standings in most polls. Trump is in a dangerous situation. The more that Republican voters find out about him, the less they may want him as their standard bearer.
Cruz spoke for other candidates and much of America with his withering criticism of some of the insipid questioning by CNBC moderators. Cruz has street cred with large parts of the tea party crowd but must expand that appeal; lashing out at the media is always a win-win for GOP officials. Still, as a few of his debate answers illustrated, Cruz has a tough time appearing empathetic to the real financial woes faced by many Americans.
Christie, who has been shunted to the side during much of the campaign, at least re-ignited the hope among supporters that his tough talk on public safety will capture the attention of voters, who then might more closely scrutinize his once highly touted leadership skills as New Jersey governor.
Taking a longer view, Wednesday’s debate also demonstrated some of the problems the Republicans will have when the eventual nominee has to take on Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic candidate. While the GOP field aimed almost a dozen attacks at Clinton during the debate, few carried the kind of heft that’s really going to matter for Americans in a general campaign.
At this point, Rubio appears to be the most formidable potential foe for Clinton. He displays a touch of the Trump brashness and even some of the Carson-like appeal to the far right on the campaign trail.
So for now it appears to be Rubio’s time in the GOP race. We’ll see how long that lasts.
This story was originally published October 29, 2015 at 1:41 PM with the headline "As Marco Rubio moves up, GOP field gets more competitive — and muddled."