Rubio takes gloves off with Trump, and supporters love it
Published 1:35 pm Monday, February 29, 2016
<span class="ABriefbody">ATLANTA — Inviting audiences to "have a little fun," Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio’s jabs at front-runner Donald Trump are getting personal.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">In a sharp shift from policy to personal attacks on Trump, Rubio mocked everything from the billionaire businessman’s tan to making subtle remarks about his manhood. He even implied that Trump wet his pants during a recent debate.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">Crowds across the South have appeared receptive to the Florida senator’s change in tone, exploding into cheers and laughter at the digs. But individually, many voters sheepishly smile and acknowledge that the turn is unfortunate but necessary for anyone to take down Trump.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">Come what may for Rubio, his attacks on Trump, the favorite in most of this week’s Super Tuesday polls, exposes a deeply-root antipathy for Trump among a segment of the Republican electorate.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">"You’ve got to break Donald Trump somehow," said Elizabeth Neal, who attended a Rubio rally downtown Atlanta on Monday. "To some degree it means doing whatever it takes — even if it means getting down to his level."</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">In Georgia on Saturday, Rubio flipped his rhetoric from focusing on policy comparisons to ripping on Trump’s appearance.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">"It’s amazing to me. A guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on makeup," Rubio told an audience of 7,000 parents with children on a Christian high school football field Saturday. The grandstands roared. "Donald Trump likes to sue people. He should sue whoever did that to his face," he added.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">In Virginia on Sunday, Rubio again mocked Trump for his complexion. Borrowing Trump’s slogan, he said, "Donald is not going to ‘Make America Great.’ He’s going to make America orange!"</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">The audience of 3,000 mostly college-aged students hooted and cheered when Rubio referred to Trump’s hands, disproportionately small for his six-foot stature. "You know what they say about men with small hands?" Rubio cracked, pausing amid the cheers at what is often a sexual reference.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">"You can’t trust them! You can’t trust them," he insisted, straining to overcome the howls.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">It’s an occasional feature in Rubio’s new shtick in the run-up to Super Tuesday’s 11 Republican nominating contests, which could jeopardize the Florida senator’s campaign if he fails to pull off a first place finish in at least one of those states.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">It sometimes begins with Rubio pulling out his phone, saying "You guys want to have a little fun?" then reading some of Trump’s notorious pronouncements on Twitter.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">While it may appear that Rubio’s newfound playground banter has devolved from the serious indictment of Trump’s ethics and political past, Rubio aides say that the maneuver is aimed at trying to knock Trump off of his message and break through a cable and network television news barrier Trump has unwaveringly dominated.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">"I suppose I could sit here and hurl personal insults," Rubio said at the top of his remarks at a downtown Atlanta hotel for the midday rally Monday, adding "OK, I’ve done it, like, a couple times."</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">A few voices in the audience began to chant: "Read Tweets, read Tweets," hinting that some of his supporters had come to enjoy the sport.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">"He has to play that game to get to Trump," Rubio supporter Ryan Littlefield said, shrugging at the lengths to which Rubio has gone to trip Trump up. "I think it’s good that he can take it to him."</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">Rubio said later in the rally, with some apparent frustration, that the campaign had come to this.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">"I always chuckle at these reporters," Rubio said derisively, imitating the news media.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">"’Oh, why are you now saying some of the things you’re saying?’" he recalled. "And I said because for months I’ve been talking about real ideas and they don’t cover them. What a sad indictment on the state of political debate in this country today."</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">But it may be working. Since the debate Thursday in Houston, where Rubio debuted his head-on attack of Trump, cable and broadcast television coverage of his events have increased. Three networks carried part of his Monday rally in Atlanta live.</span>
<span class="ABriefbody">"It’s about time he takes the gloves off and start fighting," Gary Baker of Okmulgee, Oklahoma, said after a Rubio rally in Oklahoma City on Friday. "I think he should have started punching sooner."</span>