Now, we aren’t certain that this will hurt Rubio when voters cast their ballots Tuesday. This could turn into a line of attack that doesn’t really go anywhere. We saw some of these in 2007 and 2008: “Obama isn’t nearly as eloquent without his teleprompter” or “Obama stole parts of his speeches from Deval Patrick.” By most accounts, Barack Obama bombed in his initial debate on health care reform in 2007, and he also made cringe-worthy statements like loosely comparing the Virginia Tech shootings to outsourcing. But it didn’t matter much in the end.
But here’s the difference this time around, and it is a key one: Obama’s gaffes either occurred early in the campaign, which gave him time to right the ship, or after a year-long process where voters had become accustomed to him and were able to place his comments in a broader context. In a normal primary process, this is what would have happened with the 2016 GOP field as well. Rubio would be a well known quantity at this point, would have already been tested, and Christie, Kasich and Bush (and long-gone Scott Walker) would have had the opportunity to emerge as viable alternatives.
Instead, we’re on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, which is traditionally the major winnowing event, and a substantial wrench has been thrown into the process. If we were to end up with a situation where Kasich comes in second or third, and then Bush finishes well in South Carolina (with Chris Christie somewhere in the mix), we could have five or six viable candidates still running by the time the SEC primary rolls around in early March. The field would presumably winnow further after that point, but 822 of the 2,472 delegates – roughly a third – will have been awarded. You can probably see how a real mess plays out.
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