The mad scramble to get off the Republican debate bubble

Then you have nine candidates in competition for the three remaining slots. In whatever order you want them: Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki. These are your bubble teams. The next month may very well turn out to be their whole campaign. If they make the top 10, they can campaign like normal candidates again, with the stage and the platform they expected when they announced in the first place. If they don’t, though … the bubble bursts. While those left out certainly still have a path forward, they will have failed the first test. 

Which may mean that candidates who in the past would be wearing holes in their shoes in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina will not have as much time for that this cycle. They need to get off the bubble. This dynamic may explain some unusual moves by some of the bubble candidates, the sort of publicity-garnering events you wouldn’t ordinarily find at this stage. Ted Cruz is out there trying to go BuzzFeed-viral with (awful, but still sort of charming) Simpsons imitations. Rick Perry gives a speech saying Republicans need to court black voters, the kind of speech designed to make headlines but not necessarily appeal to voters in Iowa or new Hampshire. Bobby Jindal doesn’t just respond to the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage; he flat-out says, “Let’s just get rid of the court.” These don’t appear to be the actions of people building a campaign, state by state: These are the actions of people trying to court national publicity. An argument could be made that someone like Cruz, whose allied super-PACS reportedly have $37 million, shouldn’t spend his money in Iowa; he should spend it buying national ads on Fox News. Ordinarily, it would be insane to do that at this stage, but right now, it’s about courting polls, not voters. If Cruz can bump up his name recognition, he can escape the bubble, make the debates, and then go about trying to actually impress voters. If you don’t have Cruz’s cash, you have to be like Jindal and Perry: Saying something designed for shock value, just so someone will notice you. The polls are now life. And attention is the oxygen.