The Republican presidential candidates are moving on to New Hampshire, which means they’re on to a fresh round of attacks against one another. A candidate is usually allowed to more or less write off Iowa or New Hampshire, but the New Hampshire stakes are high, especially for those who didn’t pull off some kind of win (perceived or real) in Iowa. That’s ramping up and in some cases reshuffling the negative campaigning.
Marco Rubio got a perceived win in Iowa, but he reportedly still plans to go personal against Donald Trump. Rubio, meanwhile, is taking some hard hits from Chris Christie, who challenged reporters to quit giving Rubio a pass:
“Maybe he’ll do more than 40 minutes on a little stage telling everybody his canned speech that he’s memorized,” Christie told reporters. “This isn’t a student council election, everybody. This is an election for president of the United States. Let’s get the boy in the bubble out of the bubble and let’s see him play for the next week in New Hampshire. I’m ready to play, and I hope he is.” [...]
“It’s time for him to man up and step up and stop letting all of his handlers write his speeches and handle him,” Christie said. Talking to reporters, Christie added, “If he wants to sit here and answer your tough questions about his flip-flops on immigration, if he wants to answer your tough questions about his lack of record and experience, if he wants to answer your questions about why he ran away from his own immigration bill when it got too hot, I’m fascinated to hear his answers.”
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump will doubtless continue to take shots at each other, while Ben Carson is whining that Cruz should fire staff for allegedly telling caucus-goers that Carson was suspending his campaign. But no one much cares what Carson, currently polling ninth in New Hampshire, thinks. Speaking of people few people care much about, one big question coming out of Iowa is whether Jeb Bush’s donors will get to him and get him to lay off of Marco the anointed golden boy or whether Bush (and his Super PAC) will continue going after Rubio.
Interestingly, despite the late surge of establishment support for Trump in Iowa as some top Republicans decided even Trump would be preferable to Cruz, the New Hampshire GOP establishment seems to be planning to go after Trump. Presumably they figure that their state isn’t such friendly territory for Cruz, creating the opportunity to elevate a more establishment-friendly candidate.