Marco Rubio is insisting that he can still ride his 3-2-1 strategy 3-5-2-2-3-3-3-2-3-1-3-3-3-3-2 strategy to a Republican primary victory. (There’s a one in there along with all the extra threes and twos after Super Tuesday!) Things have changed since Iowa—Rubio can no longer paint third place as a victory—so now he’s throwing every possible argument at justifying his continued presence in the primary.
Speaking to supporters Tuesday night, Rubio promised:
I want you to understand that no matter how long it takes, no matter how many states it takes, no matter how many weeks and months it takes I will campaign as long as it takes and wherever it takes to ensure that I am the next president of the United States.
That may be admirable dedication, but at this rate, he’s going to need a lot more than 50 states to accumulate the 1,237 delegates needed for the Republican nomination. Fifteen states in, he’s got 87 delegates by most accounts, while Donald Trump has 285 and Ted Cruz has 161. But don’t worry, his people assure us. Donald Trump will collapse any day now:
One Rubio insider said that Trump's delay in disavowing the KKK is going to "lead people to a conclusion that this guy is going to destroy the party."
Maybe the KKK issue hurt Trump. Maybe without that, he would have won eight or nine Super Tuesday states instead of seven. But Rubio still won one, while getting shut out of delegates in three. It’s not a great sign that if the long-predicted Trump collapse finally happens, Rubio’s going to be the one to benefit.
So Rubio is running one more part of the Republican playbook. When in doubt, when in desperation, blame the media. Tuesday morning he (or his campaign) shoehorned two laughable claims into one tweet “The media may treat me like an underdog, but I’m an underdog that can win.” This after the media propped him up as Trump’s main competitor through weeks of losing, and on a morning when the delegate math looks like it does.