Here’s How You Know Marco Rubio’s Robot Gaffe Is Serious
Mother Jones
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Not long after the conclusion of the GOP debate in New Hampshire, Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican Party, was sitting in a booth at JD’s Tavern in Manchester, a favorite watering hole for journalists, pundits, and political tourists, and he was shaking his head. A reporter had told him that she had just heard from Marco Rubio’s camp. The once-surging presidential candidate had two hours earlier become the goat of the night, after he robotically repeated talking points in response to Chris Christie’s fierce attack that junior senator from Florida was nothing but an inexperienced empty-suit legislator whose best asset was his ability to deliver memorized rhetorical flourishes—that is, to robotically repeat talking points.
Responding to Christie—and proving his assailant’s point—Rubio had multiple times recited a prepared line in which he slammed President Barack Obama for purposefully ruining the United States. This was Rubio’s emperor-has-no-clothes moment. And after the debate, he dared not enter the spin room to explain his broken-record impersonation. But his advisers, up until now one of the most savvy teams on the GOP side, quickly developed their post-debate spin. They were telling reporters that the debate demonstrated that Rubio was so committed to criticizing Obama that he would seize every opportunity to do so. At the bar, when Steele heard this, he laughed sadly. “No, no, no,” he said. “It was a major blunder.”
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