If for some reason Ted doesn't make it, Marco's just fine

Erick Erickson effectively shoots down the narrative that Rubio is some completely scripted automaton:

The truth of the matter is that while the candidates on the debate stage with Marco and the reporters who resentfully follow him around all the time have heard the same lines over and over and over, most of the American public has not. And when the people in Nashua, NH hear it for the first time, it may be new to the press, but in Manchester it is new to the crowd and old to the press. By the time Rubio gets to Lebanon, NH, the crowd again hears it for the first time, but the press has heard it incessantly.

Therefore Rubio is a robot to the press and his debate stage opponents.

To the public, though, he is on message. For eight years the GOP elite and pundit class have bitched and moaned that the GOP needed to stay focused and on message. Along come Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who both relentlessly stay on message and the GOP have decided one is unlikable and the other is a robot. It is all nonsense. It is a mutually sympathetic circle jerk of pundits and press racing each other to come up with the wittiest stereotype to capture the imagination of bored politicos tired of the cold in Iowa and New Hampshire. It is a game to the press, but is a life and death, daily struggle to the voters who yearn for something more and something else. Just as the “Cruz is not likable” line is unfair to Cruz, the “Rubio is a robot” line is unfair to Rubio. Cruz may be unlikable to Washington politicos and Rubio a repetitive robot to the same group, but the American public have not seemed to notice.

I was in the crowd at the AFP Defending the American Dream Summit in Orlando in 2013, and, like the rest of the crowd, gave Rubio a tepid welcome when he stepped on stage to speak. His flirtation with the Gang of Eight was still fresh in our minds. I was also in the crowd at the same even two years later in Columbus, Ohio, and we had a much more robust response.We'd had two years to hear more from him on foreign policy, health care - and, yes, immigration.

You see, he has character. Just like Ted Cruz. In fact, they are the only two Pub candidates who combine impeccable character with consistent conservatism. (It's true that of the two, Ted is the most consistent.) Some people I've respected for a long time - think Phyllis Scholarly - think otherwise, but they need to stop digging through arcane background materials and look into Rubio's eyes.

Ted's first here at LITD. Marco's second. Squirrel-Hair? Way down at the bottom, not even worth considering.