LAS VEGAS — It was the Cruz-Rubio show.
The fifth Republican presidential debate and last of 2015 was dominated by Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida as the two front-runners debated aggressively topics ranging from America’s role in the world to government surveillance of terrorists to immigration reform. The exchange over what to do about the 11-12 million illegal immigrants was one Republicans have waited for; it was memorable and could impact the race just as the campaign is hitting its most critical phase.
“There was a time for choosing as Reagan put it. Where there was a battle over amnesty and some chose, like Sen. Rubio to stand with [President} Barack Obama and [Democratic New York Senator] Chuck Schumer and support a massive amnesty plan,” Cruz said as he went on the attack. “Others chose to stand with [Republican Alabama Senator] Jeff Sessions and [Iowa Republican Representative] Steve King and the American people and secure the border.”
Countered Rubio: “As far as Ted’s record, I’m always puzzled by his attack on this issue. Ted, you support legalizing people who are in this country illegally. Ted Cruz supported a 500-percent increase in the number of H-1 visas, the guest workers that are allowed into this country, and Ted supports doubling the number of green cards,” he said. “Does Ted Cruz rule out ever legalizing people that are in this country now?” (Cruz declined to answer.)
Many of the lesser candidates, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the one-time frontrunner, primarily focused on New York billionaire and reality television star Donald Trump. Bush delivered a strong performance on CNN Tuesday evening, perhaps his best of the five debates. Bush energetically and substantively challenged Trump on his controversial plan to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. But it could have come too late to reverse a months-long slide that have seen not only his position in the horse race plummet, but his personal favorablitiy ratings as well.
Post debate, team Bush argued otherwise. Privately, Bush supporters walked away from the debate believing Bush might profit from the Cruz-Rubio battle because it could remind voters that the two senators are Washington politicians at a time when voters aren’t very fond of D.C. “This was a commander in chief debate and tonight we saw someone who could be commander in chief,” Bush campaign manager Danny Diaz told reporters in the “spin room” following the two-hour, prime time cablecast.
Trump, the primary’s undisputed national front-runner, finished the night on a high note.
He promising to eschew a third-party White House bid and stick with the Republican Party in 2016, and was complimenatry of his competitors — a stark contrast from his campaign trail behavior but also typical Trump for a debate setting. However, Trump looked flustered several times throughout the debate, complaining at one point that the moderators and other candidates were “unfairly” spending too much time focuing on him. Additionally, he failed to expand on his foreign policy beyond his proposals to shut down portions of the Internet and ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. as a means to protect against domestic terrorism.
Whether Trump’s stumbles dent his support and recent rise in national GOP polls is unclear; they haven’t in previous debates.
Trump, who occupied center-stage and has dominated campaign in the week since he unveiled his Muslim ban proposal, ultimately took a backseat to Cruz and Rubio, who offered a preview of what could be the showdown that determines the GOP’s 2016 nomination fight should Trump fade down the stretch or simply come up short once the voting starts in Iowa on Feb. 1. The two first-term senators fought to a draw, although it could be argued that Cruz had the better evening overall.
He projected strength and confidence on foreign policy matters in a debate dominated from start to finish on national security just days after the U.S. suffered its worst terrorist attack by Islamic radicals since Sept. 11, 2001. But Cruz wasn’t perfect. After the debate, his national campaign chairman, Chad Sweet, sought to clean the questions Cruz’ position on how he would address illegal immigrants living the U.S. and the fact that the senator refused to answer Rubio’s question about what he would do as president.
“I’m here tonight and I want to make this super clear to everybody so put me on record on this: Sen. Cruz unequivocally does not support legalization,” Sweet said. “In the end, though, what the senator is trying to do as well is save and expand our legal immigraion system. So, he’s a champion of our legal immigration system but he’s also unabashadly a champion of border security and law enforcement.”
“We felt very good about the exchange on immigration,” Sweet added.
Rubio was solid, and displayed his usual mastery of the several challenging threats the U.S. faces around the world. But unlike Cruz — and any of his nine competitors on stage at the The Venetian hotel and casino — Rubio had to fend off attacks from multiple candidates, including from Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. It hamstrung Rubio’s ability to go on offense and control the debate, as he has in his previous four outings in prime time.
But Rubio’s team looked as pleased with how Tuesday’s debate went as they appeared after the previous four events. Campaign spokesman Alex Conant said the senator got the better of Cruz on national security issues, and dismissed suggestions that the renewed focus on Rubio’s immigration position would hurt him going forward.
Rubio helped author the bipartisan “gang of eight” immigration reform bill that included a lengthy path to citizenship. It cleared the Senate in June of 2013 but stalled in the House. Rubio stood by his support for legalizing illegal immigrants during the CNN debate while repeating his now two year old position that Washington should secure the border first, and tackle other elements of reform separately. Conant said raising the issue anew wouldn’t hurt Rubio because his position is consistent, well known and baked into the political cake.
“We had a very good debate tonight. Any time that 15-20 million Americans are watching Marco on that’s a good night for our campaign,” Conant said. “I don’t think anybody watching TV tonight didn’t know what Marco’s position on immigration was. A lot of them still don’t know what Ted Cruz’s position on immigration is because it’s so muddled and uncertain.”
Nothing that happend in Las Vegas on Tuesday is likely to change the trajectory of the race that has seen Trump on top, Cruz and Rubio rising, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie making steady headway in New Hampshire — and retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson fading. Carson drew unwanted notice at one point for refusing join a discussion about government surveillance. Carson declined because he did not want to get in the middle of a debate between two other candidates.
The lasting impression could be of a candidate who avoided talking about a major national security issue just moments after he had complained to moderator Wolf Blitzer that he wasn’t not receiving his fair amount of debate time. The Carson campaign disagreed that it was a bad moment for its candidate. “He saw it as a spat question; he’s not going to get in the middle of spat quesaitons. He certainly has opinions on the issue,” Carson advisor Ed Brookover said.
For Christie, the questions revolved around whether he could transform the debate into another bump in the polls. Discussing the terrorist threat and presidential leadership are in the former U.S. attorney’s wheelhouse, and he took full advantage. Christie purposely chose not to get into fights with other candidates, strategically husbanding his air time to talk about himself and continue to pitch his message to the many Republican voters who aer still getting to know the candidates.
Prior to the debate, pundits and strategists speculated that Christie might go after Rubio because the Floridian appears to stand in the way of Christie in New Hampshire. Instead, the only time Christie mentioned Rubio was to praise him.
“The more he’s talked about himself the better he’s been doing,” Christie’s senior advisor Mike DuHaime said. “You saw this back and forth among the candidates, and I don’t think it helped any of them.”
