The real schedule, though, is far more unforgiving. If Rubio can’t actually pull ahead of Trump in swing-state polls by March 15, when Ohio and Florida hold their winner-take-all votes, then he won’t be Kutuzov after Napoleon took Moscow; he’ll be the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk without a fleet to ferry him to safety.
There isn’t going to be a long wintry war of attrition against Trump for Rubio; the time for that is gone. Instead, after Super Tuesday, assuming that Rubio does edge Cruz consistently, he’ll have to beat Trump in two pitched battles — the Detroit and Miami Republican debates, on March 3 and March 10. And he’ll have to do so in the shadow of screaming headlines that stress, not delegate counts, but Trump’s overall winning streak.
If Rubio realizes that this endgame looms, you could argue that his “hold, hold, hold …” strategy is actually far cockier than his shrinking-violet approach this week suggests. It depends, in the end, on his ability to dispatch Trump in a narrow window of time, amid a media frenzy, on a stage that’s favored Trump all campaign long.
But does he realize it? Is he prepared for what he’ll have to do, and what Trump will do to him?
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