Four takeaways from tonight’s GOP debate

This was the third GOP debate. And while some candidates did well – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio – and some fared poorly – former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush -- it’s not likely any of the moments changed the trajectory of the campaign.

Here are a few takeaways:

Blame the media.

Attacking the questioner is a long-standing get-out-of jail device in debates -- particularly on the Republican side, where resentment of what voters see as the liberal media is a perennial grievance. But it may have reached a pinnacle Wednesday. Whenever the candidates got a tough question about their records, or even when they didn’t, they attacked the media. The crowd rewarded them with enthusiastic applause.

Nearly every candidate accused the questioners of getting their facts wrong, without answering the questions.

“It’s not a very nicely asked question the way you say that,” Donald Trump told John Harwood when the moderator asked Trump if he was running “a comic book version of a presidential campaign?”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, when confronted with questions about some of his personal financial struggles, accused Becky Quick, another member of the CNBC panel, of reciting a litany of his opponents’ false attacks. At another point, he took an additional shot, condemning the media for going soft on Hillary Rodham Clinton after last week’s Benghazi committee hearing.

“The Democrats have the ultimate super PAC,” Rubio said. “They’re called the mainstream media.”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz forfeited an easy question about his opposition to the latest federal budget deal – one of his favorite topics – just to get in his shot, a full catalog of the unfair questions lodged at him and his opponents.

“The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media,” he said.

“This is not a cage match,” he chided the moderators. “And, you look at the questions:

‘Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?’

‘Ben Carson, can you do math?’

‘John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?’

‘Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?’

‘Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?’

“How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?” he said.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz said on Twitter that the hit scored off the charts with his focus group.

Florida’s favorite sons are no longer brothers.

Bush had once been talked about as a mentor to Rubio, the former Florida House Speaker. If they were ever that close, they are certainly not now.

Bush’s campaign is struggling as insiders begin to see Rubio as the stronger mainstream candidate. And that tension became very public Wednesday when Bush criticized Rubio’s poor attendance record in the Senate.

“I’m a constituent of the senator, and I helped him, and I expected that he would do constituent service, which means that he shows up to work,” Bush said. “Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work. I mean, literally, the Senate -- what is it, like a French work week? You get, like, three days where you have to show up?”

Rubio noted that prior presidential candidates had also missed Senate votes and accused Bush of employing a double standard.

“The only reason why you’re doing it now is because we’re running for the same position, and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you,” Rubio said.

Where did Bush go?

Bush was once again under pressure to show up big and he didn’t. He failed to speak often or memorably or give worried donors and celebrating rivals any reason to believe he was reclaiming his status as the leading mainstream candidate.

The Republican Party has real differences over entitlements.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, essentially agreed as Christie said that “the government has lied to you, and they have stolen from you” by spending the surplus in the Social Security trust fund.

But they disagreed sharply on what to do about that. Christie believes the only way to keep Social Security solvent without tax hikes is to means-test benefits.

Huckabee said that doing so would be unfair to those who’ve already paid in, comparing it to a Ponzi scheme.

“The government has no business stealing even more,” he said. “Tell me what’s the difference between the government and Bernie Madoff?”

For more on Campaign 2016, follow @NoahBierman

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