For the Record: Cruz vs. Rubio, Trump vs. dormant Twitter accounts
In an effort to avoid spoilers for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” we spent all afternoon and evening watching the GOP debates. We’ll call it a success – all we got out of it were a few quotes from “The Princess Bride.” Just 36 more hours to go …
If you want to kill some time until showtime, remember to sign up for daily For the Record emails, and follow us on Twitter (@RGJBrettMcG, @joannaallhands and @jmestepa.) That should kill about five minutes.
So much for that Cruz-Rubio ticket
There can be only one … one second-place Cuban-American candidate, that is. While everyone expected this debate to be like all the previous ones (read: Trump-centric), Round Five will be remembered for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio brawling on immigration and anti-terror surveillance. Cruz criticized Rubio for working with Democrats on pro-amnesty efforts in 2013; Rubio went after Cruz for voting to end the National Security Agency’s collection of phone data to identify and track terror suspects. While everyone waits to see if Donald Trump’s star will ever fade, Cruz and Rubio want to be next in line to snag front-runner status.
Jeb: Let’s all gang up on Trump, you guys! … Guys?
It’s true, past GOP debates had been all about Trump. Candidates attacked Trump, smirked at Trump, high-fived Trump, gave side-eye to Trump, and wrote nasty notes about Trump and passed them around the stage. This time around, everyone went after Rubio (who was the most-mentioned candidate), but everyone forgot to tell Jeb. Jeb did get some cheers during the exchange, but Donald got laughs at Jeb’s expense, and Jeb’s reaction could be the very reason that split-screen video was invented.
Trump vows not to Nader this election
Sorry to everyone who loves political melees – it just got way less likely that there will be an independent candidate in the 2016 race. During the debate, Trump said he’s “totally committed to the Republican party” and would stand by his decision not to run a third-party candidacy if he’s not the Republican nominee. Ditto Ben Carson, who said he won’t bolt, either. Next year just got way less interesting. Does anyone know what Ralph Nader and Ross Perot are up to lately?
More from the campaign trail
- Money apparently irrelevant in politics now (Paste BN OnPolitics)
- Clinton-supporting super PAC unveils “Deport Trump” Snapchat filter available only to users who were at the Republican debate last night and you know what, this probably sounded better in their heads (Paste BN OnPolitics)
- Kasich: Road to the White House goes through Ohio. Trump: Works for me (Cincinnati Enquirer)
- Hannah Horvath heads to Iowa to campaign for Hillary, and try to smooth things over at the Writers’ Workshop (The Des Moines Register)
If there’s one thing Trump can’t stand, it’s dormant Twitter accounts
Poor Georgina Williams (@GeorgezWill). Trump called her out yesterday morning for not tweeting since February. Either that, or he was trying to insult George F. Will (@GeorgeWill) – we’re not quite sure.