http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/01/14/debate_night_alliance_to_take_out_rubioDebate Night: Alliance to Take Out Rubio?
January 14, 2016
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RUSH: A big Republican debate tonight, but it has a chance of being really different 'cause only six people on the stage in the prime-time debate, the pregame meal at six o'clock's got three people, and then the main event at nine. And there's a bit of news being made about the nine o'clock debate tonight on the Fox Business Network, and it comes from Chris Stirewalt at Fox News.
Apparently, an accord has been reached between Chris Christie and Jeb Bush, and the objective tonight is to team up to take out Marco Rubio. There is a battle on for the select choice to be seen as the establishment's candidate. Right now that's perceived to be Rubio. And this kind of reminds me a little bit -- go back to, what was it? -- 2008, when what's his name, Huckabee, tossed all of his delegates to McCain in West Virginia in an effort to take out Romney, and that worked.
And shortly thereafter the Florida primary came around and McCain won it, and by February-March, the Republican nomination was over, which then gave birth to Operation Chaos here in order to keep the Hillary campaign alive, the Democrat campaign alive, so there would be something here to talk about through June. Keep the audience engaged since the Republican primary was essentially over.
But the story from Stirewalt here is: "The longest-standing alliance in the field has been broken as Donald Trump started attacking Ted Cruz and Cruz responded with several salvos of his own." So the theory has been that Cruz and Trump have been hands off to each other and, as such, they've been the number one and two in the recent polling data and that's all out the window now since Trump's gone after the birther angle. Now he's going after the Goldman Sachs angle, which, something popped up about Cruz. Details on all this coming up. We're setting the table here.
And in the midst of this alliance having fallen apart now, to whatever degree it existed, we're now hearing of an accord between Christie and Jeb Bush that will manifest itself, materialize tonight in the debate tonight with one objective, and that is to stop Marco Rubio. Not Trump, not Cruz, but to stop Marco Rubio. When we left lane program yesterday, I had a teaser of a story that was coming, and it came later in the day, New York Times, about how the establishment is warming up to Ted Cruz. And it's a stunner.
It's a New York Times story. Therefore, you have to hold it at arm's length, but the essence of the story is that the donor class is starting to realize that you can't win the presidency without the base. So this whole strategy of trying to win the nomination and the presidency without the base and the Republican Party, apparently -- I say apparently because I'm still not believing this yet -- apparently has been tossed overboard, and now there is a, if not a warming toward Ted Cruz, a relaxing of the chill toward Ted Cruz from the establishment wing of the party, because at the end of the day it is said in this story that they want to win and that they have realized they're gonna need the base to win. It's kind of a shocker. And, again, the story's now appeared in great detail. We'll have all of this explained in detail as the program unfolds.
Now, in addition to Christie and Jeb Bush with this new accord here, supposedly, to align tonight in join in universally attacking Rubio, to take him out, there are long knives out for Rubio everywhere. George Will has a piece that just destroys Rubio today along the lines of the pieces he has written to try to destroy Donald Trump. As I look at all of these anti-Rubio stories and posts on blogs and so forth, it really strikes me that it wasn't that many years ago that Marco Rubio was considered the last great hope, when Marco Rubio was a local Florida politician. What was he, in the state Senate or the -- and he was running around, and he had this state, the conservatives in this state were totally captivated.
Rubio was literally considered the next Ronald Reagan or potentially could be the next Ronald Reagan. So he runs for Senate and gets elected and, since then, it's amazing. I'm sitting here, I sent some friend notes today just observing the -- I don't know how else to describe it -- the efforts to destroy Rubio's future as a presidential candidate, not just in this.
I mean, the things that are being said and written about Rubio today are intended to take him out for life, I think. Untrustworthy, scheming, deceitful. It's amazing. And it hit me again, I have to tell you, whether it's warranted or not, it hit me again how remarkably easy it seems to be for us to take out people on our team. Here in one primary season it is seriously up for grabs that Marco Rubio's political future is in the process of being whittled down to nothing. And the Democrats aren't the ones doing it.
I sent this observation to a couple friends this morning. They wrote back, "Well, it is what it is. Guy's using deceit. The guy is this or that." And I said, man, it just seems like overnight. And it predates the presidential campaign. The presidential is just highlighted -- you know, right there in the middle of it is the Gang of Eight and the apparent disingenuousness on amnesty and all that. Show you how serious an issue this is to people. If you waver from it, if you are appearing to be scheming, if you are trying to deceive people on it and it's discovered, you may as well wrap it up.
It is too important an issue. It's the central issue around which so much else is revolving on the Republican side. And there isn't any grace period. There doesn't seem to be any do-overs permitted here. You get it wrong once, and that's the end of trust that people have for you. It seems to be, among many things, what has befallen Rubio. He was a member of the Florida house, then he was a Speaker of the Florida house.
Folks, I'm sure you remember this now that I bring it up. You talk about a rising star? It was Marco Rubio. And compared to the energy and the hope... You couldn't attend... I'll give you an example. If it was discovered, if it was learned that somebody was hosting a fundraiser for Rubio here, everybody in the world wanted to go. I mean, he was the golden boy. His story, everything. His ability to articulate conservatism with articulation and ease, convince people that it was from his heart, that there was no stratagem involved; it's just who he was.
He had the story how his family had come here from Cuba and how hardworking they were, the typical up from your bootstraps to success in America. It was a great story. It was a true story. I'm not being critical of it, don't misunderstand. I'm just sitting here, as an observer, literally amazed at how little time it takes to wipe somebody out. And tonight they're gonna try . They're trying to dot the I and cross the T on Rubio with this accord between Jeb Bush and Chris Christie.
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