POLITICO: …On Wednesday, for the first time in his fairytale rise to Republican dominance, Trump looked fed up and exhausted, leaning on his podium as his opponents ganged up, one after the other, to batter him. The quips were there – he began by claiming he wasn’t “braggadocious” (If that’s a word) and continued torturing favorite punching bags Jeb Bush and Rand Paul – but it seemed that some of the fun has gone out of the enterprise…
Undeterred, [Jeb] Bush went on the attack again, the next time hitting Trump for insulting his wife Columba in a tweet a few weeks ago. Bush, polite to a fault, demanded that his opponent apologize directly to her; Trump refused the offer, but his face reddened. Bush was more passionate in defending his brother’s legacy in Iraq – pointedly telling Trump, who opposed the war, that Bush 43 had kept him “safe.”…
Marco Rubio and Scott Walker are both lingering in the middle-single digits but they are clearly moving in opposite directions – and the debate starkly illuminated their divergent paths. Rubio, who is probably the most gifted natural orator on the GOP side, has kept a fairly low profile over the first few months of the campaign, hoping to turn on the jets in December when (he believes) Trump will swoon. The boyish-looking Florida senator lashed Trump on foreign policy – and offered a comeback to the reality star’s demand that presidential candidates speak English on the trail. Rubio spoke about his grandfather, a Cuban immigrant, who spoke Spanish – but taught him to love Ronald Reagan… (more)
