What would Trump Do?

Rubio made a grave mistake last night.  

The issue was whether he had maturity and depth and the test was whether he could say anything beyond his scripted sound bites.   He couldn’t.  He was like a stuck record or a robot stuck in a self-destructive loop, continuing to repeat the same words, even when he was being criticized for doing exactly that.   

I suspect it will cause establishment Republicans (donors, K Street, Chamber of Commerce, officeholders who want to put back together the current GOP coalition) to re-think who is electable.

Rubio looked silly.  The audience noticed and jeered.

Repeats himself

If Rubio is the nominee I can just imagine the TV ads, Rubio the puppet reciting by rote lines fed him by billionaires.  Or Rubio, looking ridiculous, repeating himself.   If I can imagine the ads, so can the Super PACS of his opponents.

But it is not too late for Rubio.

Using the What Would Trump Do, formula, here is how Trump might try to reverse the disaster.  He wouldn’t call it a disaster.   He wouldn’t wimp out.  He wouldn’t say he got confused, that it was a weak part of the debate, that he recovered later.  He would not minimize.  He would maximize and double down.

Trump wouldn't turn the other cheek

Rubio, in his own voice but channeling the Trump formula, would say it this way:
Reporter:   “Governor Christie said you are a lightweight and you only have a few sound bites to recite, and then in the debate last night he proved his case. You kept repeating the same lines.  How do you explain the disaster?”

Rubio:   “It was my strongest debate.  We need to dispel the myth that Obama is weak, and it is a message I proudly repeat and repeat because Governor Christie and Donald Trump and the media misunderstand.  Barrack Obama is destroying America.  Period.  He is making us weak and he hates the values of free enterprise, of Judaeo Christian religion, of two centuries of America tradition, of constitutional government itself.  And he is succeeding.  He is destroying America.  He’s put us in a downward spiral.  Christie can hug Obama and Trump can crow about Hillary at his wedding but I don’t apologize for telling the truth about what’s happening in this country, in exactly the same words, again and again until people accept the simple truth they are resisting.  Obama is an enemy that I have the courage to name, and I will fight to get back the country I love.”

Reporter:  “Weren’t you confused and rattled last night?  Even Fox news thought you looked sort of silly, repeating the very same script three or four times, Senator, sort of like a robot stuck on ‘repeat’.”

Rubio:  “The truth doesn’t change, and I say it in the strongest words I know.   I say the words 'systematic effort' to destroy America because it is a 'systematic effort.’   I say ‘dispel the fiction’ that Obama is losing because it is a fiction and I want it dispelled.  Obama won’t say “radical Islam.”  Well I say it.  I use the same words again and again if it is the truth. A conservative and a Republican and a Christian need never apologize for telling the truth and shame on the media if they think the truth is ‘sort of silly’.  That’s why people don’t believe the media.  They think political correctness is required and the truth is silly.   Well I don’t.  And I don’t apologize for repeating myself when I’m telling the truth and the safety of Americans is at stake."

Something like that.  Let’s see what in fact Rubio does.

ANSWER HAS COME IN:   Rubio has done it exactly "Trump style".  He has defended the repetition, then repeated it again.  Double Down.