Chris Christie has smacked Marco Rubio as “the boy in the bubble.” This makes sense as Christie’s campaign now faces an existential challenge in New Hampshire and Christie wants to portray Rubio as too young, too inexperienced, and too scripted.
These are all legitimate avenues of attack, but the implication that Rubio has been coddled is ridiculous. He won an uphill battle against an incumbent governor to get to the senate. He had to run as a de facto insurgent when he got into the presidential race, since the establishment — at least many of its big donors — swung behind Jeb Bush. And he finished a surprisingly strong third in Iowa after overcoming a huge negative advertising onslaught from the Bush SuperPac Right-to-Rise. The Bush people thought they could surprise and perhaps catch Rubio in Iowa and didn’t even come close.
Now, the onslaught continues in New Hampshire. Maybe Christie et al. can trip Rubio up in New Hampshire — the Florida senator will be an enormous target at the debate — but Rubio has gotten to this point by fighting through the millions and millions thrown at him from a vast pool of establishment money.