Thursday, February 25, 2016

First Read: Cruz and Rubio's Last Stand to Stop Trump

 
First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.
 
Cruz's and Rubio's last stand to stop Trump

Tonight's Republican presidential debate is in Houston, but as NBC's Hallie Jackson has suggested, San Antonio would have been a more fitting location -- given that the debate is an Alamo-like last stand of sorts for both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. It's why tonight and this coming Tuesday is a last stand for Cruz: He has to win his home state to stay alive in the GOP contest. But it's a last stand for Rubio, too: Can he afford to ignore Trump and cede Super Tuesday to the GOP frontrunner as time starts to run out? Many Republicans and plenty of GOP donors will be watching tonight's debate and asking: "If you aren't tough enough to take on Trump, are you tough enough to take on Hillary Clinton?" Call it the Christie debate hangover. As Ross Douthat writes, "There isn't going to be a long wintry war of attrition against Trump for Rubio; the time for that is gone. Instead, after Super Tuesday, assuming that Rubio does edge Cruz consistently, he'll have to beat Trump in two pitched battles — the Detroit and Miami Republican debates, on March 3 and March 10. And he'll have to do so in the shadow of screaming headlines that stress, not delegate counts, but Trump's overall winning streak." Of course, as we remember from our Texas history, the side that made the Alamo a last stand -- and was defeated -- still won the war in the end. 

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Source: NBC News

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