Marco Rubio needs to take some of his Republican primary competitors down a peg, so he’s diversified his talking points beyond “Obama knows what he’s doing” to take aim at both Donald Trump and Jeb Bush going into the South Carolina primary.
Rubio is very upset that Trump called Ted Cruz a pussy, because his children saw coverage of that and he didn’t know how to explain it to them. Who knows, maybe wounded parental scolding is going to turn out to be the tone that finally strips Trump of his support, but I doubt it. It does serve a bigger strategic purpose for Rubio, though, whose campaign seems to have decided he should fight his robotic image by talking about his kids more.
Rubio had a broader attack on Bush, who lagged in Iowa but placed ahead of him in New Hampshire.
“I don’t think the conservative movement would be excited about Jeb Bush,” he said in the interview with reporters on his plane. “On the major issues facing the conservative movement over the last seven years, he’s been basically missing in action. He hasn’t really been a part of that fight.” He cited Republican-led battles against the Affordable Care Act and Common Core as examples. [...]
“Jeb has no foreign policy experience,” he said. “None.”
“And if he wants to make this election about experience, well, the most important job of the president is to be commander in chief.”
Bush is also taking incoming from John Kasich, the New Hampshire runner-up who is way, way back in the South Carolina polls. But no one expects much of Kasich in South Carolina, whereas it’s seen as a key test for both Bush and Rubio in the competition for establishment support. The primary isn’t until February 20, so there’s plenty of time for Rubio to keep attacking Bush and Trump, Kasich to keep attacking Bush, Bush to keep jabbing back awkwardly at both of them, and for Ted Cruz and Donald Trump to go after each other and anyone else they think might get in their way.