Rubio
says he regrets getting personal with Donald Trump
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[March 10, 2016]
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican
presidential candidate Marco Rubio voiced regret on Wednesday about
making personal attacks against front-runner Donald Trump, a strategy
that has failed to slow the New York billionaire's momentum.Rubio,
Trump, Ohio Governor John Kasich and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the
four remaining Republican presidential candidates, participated in a
round of Fox News-sponsored town hall events a day before they meet for
another debate on Thursday in Miami.
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Rubio, whose campaign is fighting for survival after a series of
disappointing performances in nominating contests for the Nov. 8
election, has drawn fire for a line of attack in recent weeks in
which he got personal with Trump.
He called him a con artist and said among other things that he had
small hands, a charge that Trump took to mean as questioning the
size of his manhood.
Until Rubio got personal, the U.S. senator from Florida had largely
stayed above the fray and had focused his assault on Trump from a
policy standpoint.
He told Fox News' "The Kelly File" that if he had to do it over
again, he would handle the issue differently.
"My kids were embarrassed by it. My wife didn’t like it. I don’t
think it reflects good. That’s not who I am. That’s not what my
campaign is going to be about or will ever be about again," Rubio
said.
"I’d do it differently – on the personal stuff. I’m not telling you
he didn’t deserve it, but that’s not who I am and that’s not what I
want to be," he added.
Rubio, 44, fared poorly when Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho and Hawaii
voted on Tuesday. He needs to win his home state of Florida next
Tuesday or face calls for him to exit the race.
He said opinion polls showing him lagging far behind Trump in
Florida were not accurate.
"The fact of the matter is the only poll that counts is the one
they’ll take on Tuesday when they count the votes that these people
are going to cast and we’re going to win in Florida,” he said.
Cruz, 45, looking to emerge as the main Trump alternative should
Rubio and Kasich falter, said he would keep the focus of the
campaign on substantive issues.
"I don't have any views on Donald Trump's anatomy," Cruz said at his
Fox News town hall.
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BROKERED CONVENTION?
Kasich, at his Fox News town hall, said he believed he had a path
forward if he wins his home state of Ohio on Tuesday, but that it
involved a convention fight when Republicans gather to officially
pick their nominee in Cleveland in July.
A contested convention would result if Trump, 69, does not win the
required 1,237 delegates, forcing delegates to decide whether to
back him at the convention or find a consensus candidate such as
Kasich, 63.
President Gerald Ford and challenger Ronald Reagan staged a spirited
nomination fight at the 1976 Republican National Convention, but no
Republican convention has gone beyond a single ballot since Thomas
Dewey's third-ballot win in 1948.
Trump, who has come under withering attack by mainstream Republicans
for his statements on Muslims, illegal immigrants and trade policy,
said at his Fox News town hall he had attracted many new voters to
the Republican Party with his crossover appeal.
He said establishment Republicans would be risking the energy he had
brought to the race by trying to prevent him from winning.
"They would be so foolish to throw it away," he told host Sean
Hannity.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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