Tonight’s Republican CNN debate should be, to use the Donald Trump word, yuuge. I don’t mean to sound like a boxing promoter; I know that TV debates, especially Republican ones, are overhyped. They often turn out to be little more than soundbites and fury, signifying nothing. But anybody who thinks a bad debate can’t harm a political candidate should see what happened in New Hampshire, when Marco’s Rubio hilariously robotic performance in the Saturday night TV showdown helped push him down to fifth place.
Since Donald Trump looks increasingly certain to be the Republican nominee, his rivals, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, desperately need to do something special to hurt him. The CNN debate tonight is surely their last chance. If they can’t dramatically embarrass him, or somehow puncture his amazing success, he will have a barnstorming Super Tuesday on March 1, when about a quarter of the party’s delegates will be awarded. By Wednesday, Trump’s nomination will seem all but certain.
Curiously, however, Team Rubio are putting out noises that their man will go after not Trump, but Cruz.
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