Marco Rubio may have declared victory after a third-place finish in Iowa, but there’s no sugar-coating what happened to him in New Hampshire. Polling in second place there in the days leading up to the primary, Rubio came in fifth in actual voting after a disastrous debate performance. There’s no real way to spin that into anything but a humiliating defeat. And my goodness, is it beautiful to read about the whole sequence of events:
The episode was such a shock that not even Mr. Rubio seemed to understand the gravity of the situation as he left the stage at St. Anselm College just after 10 on Saturday night. His wife and four children rushed to greet him in a private back room, followed by somber-faced aides, who delivered their candid assessment.
It was not, Mr. Rubio conceded to them, his best performance. But only after the senator scrolled through Twitter — flooded with brutal, mocking reviews — did he fully grasp the damage he had done to his own campaign.
His aides and supporters, on the other hand, had been hearing it all night. “Shocked” was how one supporter close to the campaign leadership described the reaction. The emails pouring in from donors were incredulous. Why did he not fight harder against Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who had mercilessly mocked him? Why did he keep repeating the same talking points? Why was he sweating so much?
You have to imagine he was sweating even more when he realized how bad the situation was. And then this happened:
The whole episode seemed to demoralize Rubio, and his mood wasn’t helped by the fact that veteran union official Eddie Vale stalked him in a kitschy “Day the Earth Stood Still” robot costume consisting of a cardboard box and repurposed salad colander. Unfair as it was, the sight of Vale sprinting toward a frozen-smile Rubio and his press contingent at a high school here on Tuesday (clutching his colander with both hands so it wouldn’t fall off) somewhat undercut Rubio’s core message as steely, ready-from-day-one commander-in chief.
I’m not sure why it was unfair, but it sure was funny. And then, fifth place—behind Donald Trump, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, and, yes, Jeb! Bush—left Rubio admitting he was disappointed and promising to do better next time. That next time will come in a Saturday night debate and then in the South Carolina primary, where he was already polling a relatively distant third, on February 20.