The NBC First Read
headline is, "As Rubio Ascends, Scrutiny Increases." Problem being: We have no evidence Rubio is ascending. The most recent poll taken before the debate put him in
fourth place, just a point ahead of Ted Cruz. He could get a debate bump, but we don't have any evidence of that yet. The text accompanying First Read's headline makes it clearer: Rubio isn't so much ascending as his competitors for the role of establishment pick are descending.
When the Republican presidential race first started (and before Donald Trump and later Ben Carson took off), there were three co-frontrunners -- Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker. Well, Walker dropped out of the contest in September. Bush now finds his campaign on the ropes. And that now leaves us with Rubio, who campaigns today in Iowa and who very well might be your sole "establishment" frontrunner in the 2016 race.
And while the Republican establishment usually more or less gets its way, outsider candidates have been polling strongly—after all, the two frontrunners, accounting for more than 50 percent of support in recent polls, are Donald Trump and Ben Carson. Even if they both collapse, it's not clear that support will get reshuffled to the establishment's top pick.
Rubio also has yet to face frontrunner-type scrutiny. There's a lot to look at, from his tax plan to his troubled personal finances to his habit of lying. The Bush campaign has signaled a willingness to go after Rubio's weaknesses, though First Read wonders, "is the Bush campaign doing ANOTHER favor for Rubio -- by telegraphing the attacks coming his way?" That may be true from the Bush perspective, but Rubio had to know that information about his billionaire sugar daddy and friendship with a scandal-plagued legislator would come out sometime, from somewhere. It may cause Bush some backlash, but it's still not clear how well Rubio will hold up under the microscope. And there's a long time yet between now and the Iowa caucuses.