GOP candidates slam each other in rough-and-tumble debate

GREENVILLE, S.C. » The six Republicans running for president called each other liars, insulted one another’s families and even screamed at each other in Spanish as the party’s fierce battle over its identity reached a near crescendo in their latest debate tonight.

The ninth debate was the smallest, with six remaining candidates pressed to perform ahead of Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, or risk losing relevance and being forced to drop out. The forum may also have been the least civil.

Donald Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush encapsulated the GOP’s long-running schism between its establishment and the rebellious insurgency in a single raw and unusually personal exchange over the war in Iraq, and the legacy of the George W. Bush era.

“The war in Iraq was a big fat mistake,” said Trump, the business mogul and reality front-runner for the Republican nomination.

“They lied,” Trump continued. “They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none.”

The audience booed. Trump lashed back, calling its members “Jeb’s special interests” and lobbyists.

Bush, defending his family’s honor, responded with uncharacteristic intensity.

“While Donald Trump was building a reality TV show, my brother was building a security apparatus to keep us safe,” he countered.

Trump shot back that President Bush’s efforts did little good, pointing to the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in the Sept. 11 attacks. The crowd booed again.

The exchange finally ended when moderator John Dickerson turned to former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who expressed astonishment at what had just happened.

“This is just crazy,” he said. “This is just nuts. Jeez, oh man.”

The rapid-fire argument was perhaps the nastiest in a night that featured several as the freshly re-scrambled field campaigns in South Carolina, where some candidates are making what could be their final stand in the effort to take down Trump.

The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia also brought urgency to the debate, as presidential hopefuls sought to position themselves as the party’s best hope of preserving his unyielding conservative legacy.

The loss of an influential voice from the right on a court where conservatives held but a single-vote majority brought the issue of electability to the forefront of the bitterly contested race. With Scalia’s loss, conservatives no longer have a court serving as a bulwark against the liberal policies of the Obama administration.

“His loss is tremendous,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.”He will go down as one of the greatest justices in the history of this republic.”

The appointment of a Supreme Court justice is one of the most enduring legacies of any president, and it is likely to motivate the core voters in both parties who hold the greatest sway in presidential primary elections.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz immediately reinforced his image as a conservative warrior, assuring the audience that he will lead the fight to resist any nominee President Obama sends over to the Senate, demanding Scalia’s replacement be chosen by the next president.

“We are one justice away from a Supreme Court that will strike down every restriction on abortion,” he said. “We are one justice away from a Supreme Court that would undermine religious liberty for millions of Americans.”

But as the candidates were pressed on whether Republicans stood on firm legal ground in pushing to delay the confirmation of a replacement until after Obama has departed the White House, Trump was predictably frank.

He said he thinks Obama will nominate someone “whether I like it or not. I think it is up to Mitch McConnell and the others to stop it,” he said of the Senate’s majority leader. His prescription: “Delay, delay, delay.”

Trump has reclaimed his bravado after a disappointing second-place finish in Iowa’s caucuses. His strength in early states and large lead in national polls has prompted panic in the Republican establishment, which is suspicious of his ideologically mixed populist proposals and worried that his inflammatory rhetoric will alienate Latinos and other key constituencies in a general election.

Cruz, who has cast himself as a more purely conservative anti-establishment foe, has tried to frame the race as between him and Trump.

“I like Donald, he’s an amazing entertainer,” Cruz said. “For most of his life, his policies have been very, very liberal.” Cruz continued, homing in on Trump’s past support for Planned Parenthood.

“You are the single biggest liar,” Trump interrupted. “You are probably worse than Jeb.”

“This guy will say anything,” Trump said. “He’s a nasty guy.”

Cruz also sparred with Rubio, as their long-simmering feud over immigration sizzled into new territory when the Floridian jabbed the Texan’s Spanish-language credentials.

“Marco has a long record when it comes to amnesty,” Cruz said, noting that during a Spanish-language interview on Univision, Rubio declined to say whether he would repeal President Obama’s immigration executive actions, which protect some immigrants from deportations.

“I don’t know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn’t speak Spanish,” Rubio shot back.

And that led Cruz to do something he rarely does: He spoke Spanish, a bit broken, but loudly and defiantly enough to be heard over Rubio’s voice.

Both are the sons of immigrants from Cuba.

While the dynamics of the race have shifted considerably since the last GOP debate a week ago in New Hampshire, and the field has shrunk, no single candidate has yet been able to consolidate the anti-Trump vote, including Ben Carson, who has faded in the polls but continues to run.

After a poor showing in New Hampshire, Rubio is fighting to repair his image as a fresh and articulate party spokesman, especially on foreign policy, where he has tried to establish himself as an aggressive voice.

Bush faces nearly as much pressure as Rubio. He finished just well enough in New Hampshire to remain viable in South Carolina, where he is hoping to get a boost from his family’s successes in the state.

After distancing himself at times from the family name, Bush is clinging to it, with an event planned Monday in North Charleston with former President Bush.

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(Mehta of the Los Angeles Times reported from Greenville and Bierman and Halper of the Tribune Washington Bureau from Washington. Lisa Mascaro of the Tribune Washington Bureau in Washington contributed to this report.)

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