So, the Rubiobot was exposed last night during the ABC News debate. Gov. Chris Christie lifted the curtain, so to speak, and turned Marco into scrapple, Jersey-style.
Senator Marco Rubio let his inner “boy in the bubble” show at Saturday night’s Republican presidential debate, tripping and falling right into Chris Christie‘s criticism that Rubio is too scripted, and unable to think on his feet. Within minutes, Rubio used the same exact line about dispelling “this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing,” with slight variations, four times.
He needs further programming. Perhaps Rubiobot 2.0 will be harder to detect.
And this is the establishment alternative?
Rubio is suffering from the same problem that Fiorina and Walker and Perry/Thompson in 2008 suffered; the establishment and elites bought into their own hype about how awesome and killer and radical and demographic-destroying their latest standardbearer was and overlooked their flaws. But the salient facts are:
If the establishment wants to have a candidate that can win the general, it can’t be Rubio. Their only chance in hell is Christie (and only if he’s against Clinton, because it’ll then be Bridgegate v. Foundationgate) or Kasich and both comes with their own set of flaws above and beyond the fact that they’re viewed as heretics and squishes.
Christie and Kasich both very unpopular with the hard right though, especially the evangelicals – hard to picture either getting nominated.
Also, Bridgegate – Christie might be indictable if he were not a candidate.
Also, Rubio – “New American Century” = PNAC dogwhistle – guy is as big a neocon as they come, also funded by people like Norman Braman.
yah, but he LOOKS good … <snark> except in those pictures of him looking like a porn start gazing at the camera while sucking on … water. </snark>
Rubio had ever reason to think he would leave NH in a 3 way race and that he was the most likely nominee.
What a disaster. It is now almost certain SC will be a four-way affair, and one much harder for him to win.
March 16th is make or break time for the GOP establishment lane. That is when they have to have a candidate who can win at least of the winner take all states.
They cannot do it if Rubio is splitting that vote with Kasich (Christie looks dead right now).
The odds of Trump or Cruz winning the nomination went up significantly last night, though I don’t think either will
Not a surprise to those of us that have long seen him as an empty suit. In the January debate, he rattled on answers to fast to questions that is was obvious that he was working from rote memory.
I can’t watch those ridiculous events (I won’t even call them debates) because life is short and I can’t spare the brain cells. I did check out some blogs today for recaps, though.
Catch the footage of the opening if you can, when the candidates are being announced and noted sleepwalker Ben Carson just stands there like some kind of idiot, unable to make his way to the podium for no apparent reason. Then Trump is confused, stands with Carson for a while as the other candidates are announced, and the two of them finally make their way to their spots after repeated calls from the moderators. Poor John Kasich is all but forgotten, which is probably just as well.
I hope the Republican voters are watching these debacles and tearing their hair and gnashing their teeth. Look at the freak show you created, you greedy bastards!
Supposedly crowd applause noise they couldn’t hear the moderators. Great fun to watch the Klown act tho.
Klown act?
In the tradition…
AG
What about the Mission Accomplished photo?
Yes. That too.
AG
Jersey style eventually always goes beyond obnoxious. Can’t this distinguished gentleman find a third lapel pin to sick you know where?
Saw it last night. Sometimes the planets align and the moment is perfect. This was that segment. Rubio couldn’t choose which rehearsed speech to use and stayed with the same one. Repeatedly.
When you look at these so called candidates of the GOP. You can almost feel sorry for the GOP. They really have nothing in their lineup and to think they brought this crap upon themselves. Karma for sure.
They never really did, it’s just with the netroots, and the independence the internet allows for information to out flank the corporate owned MSM right leaning censorship model, the clowns are exposed for what they actually are. You can bet the GOtP oppo research for each candidate reads lefty blogs/websites searching for weaknesses of other candidates they can exploit.
I wonder how well GWB or RWR would have done in the era of 2012-16 version of the internet.
Two things would have been more obvious. 1) The amount of down time they required during the campaign. 2) The unvarying quality to what they said.
RWH was an actor; so, he would have fared better on the visuals. Both would have had serious problems with being fact checked.
Rubio did it to himself – Christie didn’t do much. Christie called him out on the first repetition, and if that was all that happened, it wouldn’t have been much. Rubio’s problem was that he repeated himself TWICE more after Christie called him out. Christie was trying to break in during the second repetition, but he didn’t actually get a chance. The Rubiot is just so self-unaware he keeps repeating himself even after somebody’s pointed it out to him.
Christie did get the better of their mutual demeaning jabs about job performance, but that’s a separate issue.
The Voterbots are on the fritz as well:
Matt Taibbi – The Vampire Squid Tell Us how to vote
The contempt they have for ordinary people oozes out of their pores.
Young women don’t seem to appreciate being called mindless hormonal drones seeking boys either.
Yes, Blankfein and all of his co-conspirators are of the opinion that the mass of voters is totally stupid.
However, this “opinion” has been proven true since at least the Assassination ’60s.
Hmmmm…
My own “opinion” is that the people of the United States have been taken for a trance-media ride. We are originally lulled to sleep by what we are taught in school, and then the depth of that sleep is very professionally maintained and updated by the magnificently powerful, corporate-owned, intelligence-controlled mass media machine.
I have just about given up trying to inform large numbers of people about this situation, because only the mass media can reach “large numbers.” That’s why it’s called mass media. Duh. It is not about to let itself be used to tear the curtain off of the back room where the Great and Omnipotent Hydra-Headed Wizard is churning out mind control information at an amazing pace and scale.
Nevertheless…just for old times’ sake (2005)…here are my own original recommendations for going about the task of unmasking the controllers and their control mechanisms.
Ahhh, for the good ol’ days. When I actually thought media addiction was curable.
Sigh…
AG
So predictable that even in a post about the most recent GOP debate, a reader can’t avoid another comment aimed at portraying the Clintons as truly corrupt, money hungry and absolute unalloyed evil. In certain quarters this has come to define their public service and now Hillary’s candicacy, even though she’s not directly mentioned in the comment.
There’s a comment at that linked Taibbi article that mentions that there are lots of bankers who weren’t and aren’t complicit in the events that led to the financial collapse in 2008 and that we shouldn’t paint them all with a certain broad brush. Exactly what’s happening to the Clintons in general and to Hillary specifically among a growing segment of the left.
Am not sure that this protracted and increasingly ugly primary fight is going to help our chances in November. There’s historical precedent and a school of thought that it hurts rather than helps.
I wish I could rate you a 4, but I can’t figure out how to get ratings to register. Oh well.
Thanks for the recommendation. I tried really hard not to be accused of another “ad hominem” attack as happened to me last evening.
Technical note, if you can comment you can rate them. Just click on the arrow next to None and scroll down to the 4 (in this case) and then click on the “rate all” button to the right. It took me some time before I realized I could read all the comments at a blog post, rating them as I read along and then click the last “rate all” button at the end, even if I wasn’t rating them all, and my likes or dislikes would then register only for those comments that I selected.
I tried what you said, did not work for me.
I don’t understand that.it should work. Presumably you’ve never been able to rate comments here at Booman’s place?
So it seems.
Well, I clicked on the number next to my comments and you are definitely one of the 5 who rated my first comment and one of the two on another. Interestingly, Marie3 rated my first one a “1” which makes me a troll. That made me laugh.
Thanks for the info on how to tell who rated a comment, I see I am still learning how this site works.
Here’s what I do when others here post things that I know I’m not interested in or the contributor in general annoys me, I ignore them. I don’t go around bullying or denigrating them. Or calling them names.
You don’t like a heads up on a just published piece by Taibbi, then move along before your “beautiful mind” get contaminated with facts and truths.
Marie3, c’mon!. Be honest. The “heads up link” to the Matt Taibbi post was secondary to the opportunity to engage in some more Clinton bashing. Tis your right, of course.
Guess this beautiful mind will have to get serious about searching for the commenter’s name before reading a comment so as to avoid the unbeautiful ones. Just wasn’t expecting one to be posted here when the subject was last night’s Republican debate.
That is what I have learned to do.
“Just wasn’t expecting one to be posted here when the subject was last night’s Republican debate.”
You make it sound like had shit for supper and there were leftovers. My only regret is that Marie found it and posted it before I could. She does seem to have all the fun. What’s for desert?
From the citation:
How is this an unfair assessment or unwarranted consideration?
Giving the Clintons’ every bit of possible credit, their own words show that they are buying the Street’s explanations and excuses.
Part of that may be that they are reluctant to face their own contributions to the crash. It is understandable.
Even after repeated plea agreements with enforcement agencies that exhibited near every piece of their business operations to be corrupted and fixed against the public/outsiders, the Clintons are making excuses for them because they believe them, quite possibly.
Libor, forex, money laundering, etc, etc. Just google “bank, plea, fine” and see the variety.
The Steinmen comment was amazing.
As was the non-apology apology.
Clinton is closing in NH – and leaving the state today to lower expectations was smart.
The Steinmen comment was amazing.
As was the non-apology apology.
Clinton is closing in NH – and leaving the state today to lower expectations was smart.
Seemed like an intersection last night. Rubio was demolished by himself with some expertise provided by professional bully Christie and of course Twitter. Then CNN has continued to go hard against Cruz for his lie about Carson, especially this morning after Cruz blamed CNN again during the debate. CNN’s pundits slamming Cruz for not only letting the story get out front but then for not allowing it to get behind the campaign.
So the governors did a good to great job last night. Trump managed to stay. And the media, via CNN, has decided to promote fact checking and not let Palin crowd have their way with them any longer.
Since I’m told NH voters really like candidates who are the real deal, last night should have knocked the top tier off their pedestals.
This is amusing, and it is another cord of wood to stack on the bonfire of reasons why Rubio would be an extremely flawed general election candidates. The weird thing that all of us have to admit here is that the GOP base thinks differently from us. I have no idea how Rubiobot’s malfunctioning chip will play among voters in their primaries. Who knows, this may help him in the next few weeks. That would make no sense, but that goes with their territory, doesn’t it?
First, I want to say that was a great headline. Were you consciously thinking of Jaws when you wrote that?
Second, I’m going to assert that there was a time not long ago when Rubio could have succeeded – but that time has passed. In 2000 and 2004 there wasn’t a strong social media presence on the left to counter the one on the right – remember when people in the mainstream press openly said things like “Drudge rules our world” and “Drudge is America’s assignment editor”? In that era a Rubio-level candidate could and did succeed because the press not only covered up for his mistakes, they actively attacked the Democrat mercilessly. Gore won the first debate by a landslide in polls of those who watched it, but in less than a week “everyone knew” that Bush had won and that it was Gore, not Bush, who’d lied his ass off because that’s what Drudge told the media to report. 4 years later, Bush is getting instructions from someone on an earpiece in the first debate and the press covers it up and picks on Kerry. Well, hell, the whole Swift Boat thing was all about the press (that ad had almost no paid runs – it was all about news programs reporting on it endlessly).
But in 2008 the network media pundits wanted to award the first debate to McCain – but the immediate polls and the social media gave it to Obama. They tried, but the right wing narrative of the first debate didn’t take hold.
So, the GOP is going to have to find a new model for their candidate. Reagan and Dubya won’t work any more.
Yes, that was a nod to Jaws.
Agree with your conclusion: I’m going to assert that there was a time not long ago when Rubio could have succeeded – but that time has passed.
But not the reasons why, in particular that all the smart guys on the internet in 2000 were rightwingers like Drudge.
Traditional media at any point in time in the US has always favored the “bosses” and elites, and ordinary people had limited means to dispute the veracity of what they were being told. New forms of mass media and the adoption of it by 80+% of the public takes time. (Approximately 20 years according to Peter Drucker.) Thus, an “empty suit” type like Harding could win in 1920, but twelve years later, radio had changed the equation.
The functional internet (along with the smart phone derivatives) is now twenty to twenty-five years old. However, other than personal e-mails, the vast majority of those over a certain age make little use of it. They still depend on TV for their news, including politics, and don’t question it. Yet, with each election cycle the age related digital divide gets older. Too young in 2000 and 2004, and probably just a tad too young in 2008 — financial meltdowns tend to favor the out political party.
Objectively, people are probably exposed to more crap through digital communications than traditional media in the past could manage to do. OTOH, it’s all capable of being corrected and quickly corrected.
What ordinary people were exposed to last night was irrefutable evidence that Rubio memorized a bunch of stuff for the debate. That might get them to begin noticing that almost all of them do that. Almost nothing came out of GWB’s mouth that wasn’t pre-scripted and memorized or read. (It was when he went off-script that he got in hot water.) And more people aren’t sitting around waiting for the MSM to fact-check the debaters but doing it themselves.
Right now all those outside the comfy middle-zone of the status quo are pissed. Getting it that they been conned by decades. The demand for authenticity from politicians is high and those that engage in fake moves are easier than ever to spot.
They’ve found one.
Trump.
But they are not happy about it. He threatens the entire PermaGov.
Can’t have that!!!
And so the Klown Kar rolls on….
AG
P.S. Gotta admit…it’s more entertaining than the Stupor Bowl.
The clips above don’t capture the pure inanity of the whole exchange. It’s not just that Rubio repeats the same long winded accusation that President Obama knew what he was doing when he enacted the policies that did the things he ran on doing three times in a row, it’s how the canned lines don’t really fit with what he’s talking about. It’s supposed to be a pivot, but it’s so abrupt and non sequitur that it’s noticeable on it’s own and to the point where he should know that it doesn’t make sense here before he says it. It’s like he could only memorize one thing, so he would just jump to it every single time. It would be damaging even if Christie hadn’t said anything, but the fact that he did it right after Christie said that’s all he capable of is pretty devastating.
I hope we see a Christie surge in New Hampshire and see a lot of people playing musical chairs to be the non-Trump for awhile.
Without the software glitch, Rubio would have been the perfect programmable Manchurian nominee. He actually had an opportunity last night to rise to the top of the Refucklican so-called “establishment” heap—a “strong” performance would have meant a further coalescing of of billionaire support around him. His epic Quaylian fail will hopefully keep Cruz from flying below the radar.
To quote the very person Rubio was attacking in his robotic meltdown, “Please proceed….”
“They’re Going to Need a Better Robot?”
So are we.
Bet on it.
AG
On the gay marriage bit: I’m living in Portland, Oregon with a married gay couple next door, and if this bothers anyone around here, it’s news to me. It’s a city where sexual orientation is almost completely irrelevant in local politics. (The previous mayor was gay.) Oregon have a governor who identifies herself as bi-sexual. AND YET…
The voters of this state approved an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution in 2004.
Attitudes change.
I don’t understand why it’s OK, even laudable, for We The People to change our attitudes over time, but not OK for a politician to do so.
We’re actually going to need a better reboot!!!
Bet on that as well.
I am.
Any day now.
Aaaany day now…
AG
Ha! Kasich has a new TV ad out today, and the first few seconds are hilarious! Then it shifts into what a great, by contrast, candidate he is, usual blather, but oh! What a delicious intro (Bush is third from left, Christie and Rubio are obvious, the Trump looks to have a dead badger on his head):
This is the previous Kasich “Mud” ad:
I have no idea whether these ads will help Kasich in NH, but they sure are fun to watch.
The description of the “mud” ads sounded better than the actual ones. I think they are poorly done and the theme is too weak for his opponents who aren’t widely known for slinging mud. Probably won’t hurt Kaisich but doubt it will help.
New game;
MARCO ………………………ROBO …
MARCO ………………………ROBO …
MARCO ………………………ROBO …
MARCO ………………………ROBO …