The three non-Trump candidates on stage faced a terrible collective action problem. None of them — no, not even Cruz — has a plausible path to win enough delegates to get the nomination outright. Trump still does. And unless someone attacked Trump, his momentum would continue unchecked. But the fellow who got down into the mud and started wrestling with him was likely to take a hit at the polls, while the other candidates benefited from their comparative reasonableness. Rubio leaned into the strike zone and took one for the team in the last two debates, and for his trouble, he was pilloried by the press, hammered by voters and exhorted to drop out by his rivals. He reverted to his earlier sunny optimism, augmented by folksy anecdotes about his Florida childhood.
This gave him a much a better debate than Cruz, who lectured like a cocktail party bore — often correct, but rarely compelling. Or Kasich, who had enjoyed a brief renaissance playing Mr. Reasonable against the background of the Rubio-Trump catfight, but retreated back into the wallpaper without that scene to play off of. With polls showing Rubio within striking distance of Trump in Florida, this temperance may have been the senator’s best move. If he can actually win Florida, then this will look smart in retrospect. But if he loses, then this debate will go down as the last of many moments when coordinated action might have stopped Trump — and wasn’t tried.
This is not just a metaphor for the campaign, of course, but for the whole party. A few politicians have stood up to say “No, I will never vote for Donald Trump under any circumstances.” But most are desperately hoping he will somehow go away without them having to take the risk of openly defying him.
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