BEDFORD, N.H. — Marco Rubio isn’t really a robot — he isn’t dumb or teleprompter-tied — but he is a calculating and cautious candidate, and in the mean, fast-moving 2016 primary, caution can sometimes kill.

Gloss, discipline, natural speaking talent and planning have been the hallmarks of Rubio’s methodical presidential campaign, positioning him for a surprise third-place win in Iowa and a possible surge here on Tuesday. Rubio knows his path to his party’s nomination is narrow — a needle-thread between the tea party and establishment wings of a divided GOP — but he’s also a fundamentally risk-averse politician who often seeks the safety of a script, as his mechanical recitation of the same anti-Obama talking points four times at the final debate before the primary here painfully revealed.


“It was bizarre, man; why did he keep saying the same thing over and over and over?” said a GOP operative who is close to Rubio’s Washington-based campaign team. “It was like looking at your iPhone and the video freezes and says it’s buffering. Weird.”

Rubio is facing a coming-of-age dilemma that nearly every serious presidential contender faces as they seek to rise to the top tier of a campaign — discovering that their greatest strength can be transformed into an exploitable weakness by a withering primary process and predatory opponents.

The 44-year-old Florida senator’s approach echoes the disciplined, optimistic message of generational change espoused by Barack Obama in 2008 (even Rubio’s aides privately make the comparison), but opponents have detected a vulnerability in Rubio that Obama never suffered from — a lack of audacity and propensity for reaching for a bottle of water when the spotlight is brightest.

“When the lights go on, I told you he wouldn’t be ready,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who led Saturday night’s debate drubbing of Rubio, said at a town hall meeting Sunday in Hampton, New Hampshire. “Well, the lights were bright last night, and all of America saw who’s ready and who’s not. I am. He’s not.”

Rubio mentor-turned-rival Jeb Bush, speaking on POLITICO’s “Off Message” podcast, suggested that lack of experience is the problem: If Rubio had more seasoning and less ambition he would be more capable of rolling with the punches. “I've always thought he was gifted,” said Bush. “He is charismatic. He lights up a room. He has an extraordinary message to tell, all of which is something to be admired … [But] he's never been challenged in his life … He's young.”

Added one top adviser to another one of Rubio’s GOP presidential rivals. “He’s anal, he’s a planner and the way to get under his skin is to knock him off script,” the aide said. “He doesn’t react well when circumstances shift. Christie is a bully and understands that instinctively, just as [Donald] Trump gets Jeb’s weakness.”

Still, Rubio’s slow-and-steady approach — laying low while Trump duked it out with a succession of sparring partners — was partly vindicated by his surprisingly strong third-place finish in Iowa, which has translated to a small but noticeable bump in the polls here. It’s also put a target on Rubio’s back, among the three governors seeking to secure the center-right space he occupies — Christie, Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

And while the press and pundits, gathered in Manchester like bees buzzing around a hive, declared the Rubio robot moment a possible turning point in the race, his team offered a collective shrug. “This is not a campaign falling apart when we have to turn people away at the door. … Four times, Rubio reminded you how much you hate that son of a bitch Barack Obama. If you are a regular Republican voter, that is a message you are amenable to,” said Florida Republican consultant and Rubio supporter Rick Wilson.

“Undisciplined candidates fall apart,” Wilson added. “Barack Obama — I disagree with his message, but he was an extraordinarily disciplined candidate in 2008, and he won.”

Another Rubio backer said “yeah, sure some of the performance antics weren’t right — but the core message is right.”

Still, the weak performance now raises the real possibility that New Hampshire will not narrow the establishment lane of this contest as so many Republicans expected, and hoped.

The twofold question now confronting the campaign: Will Rubio’s mistake resonate with New Hampshire voters? And how will it play with the party’s big-money donors at a time when many deep-pocketed supporters were just about ready to move their support to the boyish Cuban-American senator?

Rubio strategist Todd Harris, holding a call with campaign donors before the debate, told them to expect other Republicans to try to beat him up.

Rubio managed to raise a solid $500,000 online after the debate — but Harris’ pep talk did little to reassure the party’s establishment elites. Rubio’s finance operation is aggressively trying to court Bush donors to make the case that voters are coalescing around the Florida Republican and that he would be the establishment-lane candidate. But Rubio’s subpar debate performance has all but stopped any of that momentum. One veteran Republican bundler said the donor class would be “frozen in place” until after Tuesday’s primary.

So far, the campaign has adopted a stay-the-course mentality: Rubio’s operation didn’t hold any major donor or supporter calls to discuss Rubio’s performance at the debate, and one top bundler described the overall attitude as “let’s stick to the plan.”

On Sunday, a rested and revived Rubio made passing reference to the flub — and then, like a bungee cord snapping back, returned to the same message that brought him ridicule the night before. “It’s interesting that right now after last night’s debate — ‘Oh, you said the same thing three or four times,’” he said to a crowd of around 1,000 at Londonderry High School.

“I’m going to say it again, the reason why these things are in trouble is because Barack Obama is the first president, at least in my lifetime, that wants to change the country,” he added. “Change the country, not fix it, not fix its problems. He wants to make it a different kind of country.”

But later in the day — at a rally outside Manchester — he wouldn’t diverge from his script for the day, even when a little off-the-cuff remark might have softened the sting of the previous night’s embarrassment. After a town hall at a middle school, a reporter jokingly shouted, “Hey senator, you don’t look like a robot!” The candidate shot a quick glance and continued to pose for his pictures. When reporters kept pelting him with softballs about his performance — “Hey senator, how did you feel about the debate?” — three members of his staff lectured the press against committing acts of unsanctioned journalism — an attitude more common among candidates who have finished higher than third this year, like Hillary Clinton or Trump.

Still, after Iowa, Rubio’s bronze medal seemed ripe for an upgrade to silver or even gold — despite Trump’s dominance in public polling. Rubio’s camp deftly worked to manage expectations in Iowa — making a strong third-place finish seem as though he had actually won. With the wind at his back, Rubio looked to capitalize on what his team called “Marcomentum,” doing 10 interviews in one day when he first came to New Hampshire. He’s kept up the aggressive schedule, bouncing to three events on Sunday before hosting a Super Bowl watch party.

“I think he’s actually winning; I think he is actually moving ahead, having success. That’s why they are going after him,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who has endorsed Rubio.

But the race here is fluid, with between 10 percent and a quarter of Republicans and independents still undecided 48 hours before balloting begins — and some polling shows Rubio’s support, clocking in at around 15 percent, as among the softest in the field.

And even at Rubio’s rah-rah event in Bedford, there were signs of shifting sentiments. “I liked Jeb Bush yesterday, but I don’t feel like he’s polling real well, so that’s not a realistic thing to do,” said Mark Casparino, 50, a banker from the Manchester area.

His son, Jack — four years short of voting age at 14 — was a far bigger fan. He wore his Rubio T-shirt but fretted about the fallout from the debate

“It was a little rough for him,” he said. “I felt really bad for him. Christie called him out when he kept repeating himself. I think he’s a great guy, a great young man. I think he’ll be even better in four to eight years.”

Hadas Gold contributed to this report.

