I watched half feeling guilty that it’s Palm Sunday.
If you missed it, I’m not sure you missed much. It went exactly as I could have predicted it would: Crist was thin-skinned and in attack mode. Rubio held up fine, despite the fact that Chris Wallace declared that “in the Villages, they’re not happy with you,” based on an e-mail complaining that Rubio hadn’t let himself be “vetted” by the e-mailer’s preferred tea-party god. (Never mind that Marco Rubio is the candidate “tea party” types are most excited about this cycle — certainly nationally.)
My favorite Crist moment was watching him embrace the failed Bush/McCain immigration plan. That just brought back too many various bad memories.
The news of the debate: Crist did rule out running as an Independent.
Rubio won. But Crist managed to repeat most of his negative press releases for anyone in the Villages who tuned in. Crist sounded shrill and desperate but there may be some questions for Rubio based on Crist’s closing attack next time he drops by. Crist never really made the case why you would vote for Crist. He just aimed to hope some of his attacks on Rubio would stick enough that Floridians wouldn’t gamble on a relatively new face.