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Stripped of momentum, vulnerable Marco Rubio heads into South Carolina

 
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio holds a campaign town hall at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center Feb. 10, 2016, in Columbia, S.C.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio holds a campaign town hall at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center Feb. 10, 2016, in Columbia, S.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Published Feb. 11, 2016

Rick Santorum started it. Chris Christie kicked down the door. And the voters of New Hampshire finished the job.

A damaging series of events in New Hampshire engulfed Marco Rubio and sent him to South Carolina stripped of momentum and vulnerable.

Rubio tried to smile through the aftermath of his robotic answers at the Saturday debate. He defended his performance and doubled down on his message so hard that he had another scripted moment Monday evening in Nashua.

But Tuesday night, after finishing fifth behind Jeb Bush and others in the primary, he could no longer spin.

"Our disappointment is not on you. It's on me," he said. "I did not do well on Saturday night so listen to this: That will never happen again."

All politicians practice lines and it's early to declare Rubio fatally wounded.

But the timing was ugly, just three days before New Hampshire voters went to the polls. At best it made Rubio look robotic. At worst it suggested he was not prepared for the tense situations that confront the commander in chief. He froze. He sweated.

It killed the aura of momentum his campaign assiduously cultivated and that Rubio hammered home again and again. "When I'm the nominee …"

"His performance reinforced the caricature opponents are to make, that is he's too polished and not ready for prime time," said Alex Patton, a Republican strategist in Florida. "It absolutely killed him, but he can absolutely recover."

The catalyst for this mess: A Fox News interview last week of Rick Santorum, who said he was dropping out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination and getting behind Rubio, who shot into New Hampshire after a strong third-place finish in Iowa.

The next morning on MSNBC, Santorum could not name a single accomplishment of Rubio, whose career in elective politics began in 1998, taking him from the West Miami City Commission to the state Legislature and the U.S. Senate.

Santorum's appearance caught fire in the news and social media, providing an opening for Rubio's opponents, who already viewed him as a lightweight shrouded in his polished image and rhetorical skill.

"It was a crystalizing moment," said Jeb Bush's campaign manager, Danny Diaz, one that "really allowed for an in-depth serious conversation. One that should have taken place, frankly, earlier."

Christie pounced, savaging Rubio in town hall meetings and news interviews. Bush was not as aggressive at first but stepped up his own contrasts with Rubio and his campaign rushed to make a TV ad featuring Santorum's blunder.

By the time Rubio walked onto the debate stage Saturday at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, he was bracing for a rough night. It was worse than he could imagine. Christie laid into him as overly scripted. Rubio's response? To repeatedly respond with scripted lines about President Barack Obama.

"Marco has always been a beautiful speaker. He works hard on finding the perfect poetic words and sentence construction," said Ana Navarro, a Bush supporter who, like most Florida Republicans, also likes Rubio. "And yes, he memorizes the stuff down to the word and repeats it over and over. When you hear it the first time, it blows you away. When you hear it the fourth time, it just blows."

Rubio insisted he had done exactly what he wanted in the debate. "I would pay them to keep running that clip because that's what I believe passionately," he said Sunday on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos.

The media did play it over and over, then late-night talk show hosts. Blogs. Twitter. Liberals made robot costumes and harassed Rubio as he and his family traversed snow banks in search of votes Monday and Tuesday.

Exit polls portended a rough night. Nearly half of GOP voters said they were undecided until the final moments and two-thirds said recent debates factored in their decisions.

Rubio took fifth, trailing even Bush who spent millions more.

Wednesday morning he had another culprit. "What happened is obviously Saturday night, the debate went the way it went and then the media coverage over the last 72 hours was very negative about it and so forth," he said on Fox & Friends. "So the last thing that voters heard before going into the booth or yesterday was, you know, something bad happened on Saturday night. So it made it very difficult for us to get any other message across."

Later Wednesday Rubio was opening up to the same news media, holding court for 45 minutes on a charter plane to South Carolina, answering questions and showing he's not, well, a robot.

He passed on a chance to criticize Santorum, laughing it off.

Rubio said he didn't engage with Christie because, "I wanted to avoid fights with other Republicans. … I just pivoted to my message because I didn't want to be involved in a scrum."

A large crowd greeted him in Spartanburg, showing the promise of a recovery. Rubio remains a candidate to watch because of his speaking skills but also because he's focused largely on foreign policy and national security. His turn-the-page message has struck a chord with voters young and old.

The 44-year-old Rubio can also take comfort in this: Christie dropped out of the race Wednesday.

Rubio gets back on the debate stage Saturday night in Greenville. Bush will likely replace Christie in questioning Rubio's resume. He also has to contend with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and John Kasich.

He's already forming the comeback story.

"It's part of the process," Rubio said of Christie's attack. "You want to have a president who went through adversity in a campaign."

Contact Alex Leary at aleary@tampabay.com. Follow @learyreports.