of jeb bush in the state of florida. just because you hear bush, don t think of bush 41 and he s a moderate. let us tell you his story and let us also at the same time tell you, which they re also doing, that donald trump is an imposter, that he s not a conservative. right, ronald paul is going to be i think running a commercial during the debate right. tomorrow, again, trying to label donald trump as not a real conservative. which is the message jeb bush has been trying to push as well. and the conservative group, the club for growth, launched messages in iowa. we re at this moment, about to find out, this is the most unconventional campaign any of us can remember. trump and carson. the only weapons people are deploying against him are conventional weapons of politics, paid advertising, attacking him in debate os or attacking him at political rallies. will it work? one more quick point. donald trump is above 30%. if he can stay close to that number as we move on, he s in a
or fund raising or messaging to kind of control who ends up, you know, in the most viable position to win the nomination. i think that there s still a sense, you know, widely shared in the republican party that it would be really disastrous to the republican brand that donald trump made it to iowa, started putting, you know, putting together delegates and the republican party needs to figure out somewhere between now and then how to prevent that from happening and one way is to have a candidate who s, you know, the focal point for the rest of the party to consolidate around and they haven t been able to do that. if after tonight that starts to happen, then i think that, you know, they can say that this debate was a big turning point for them. we can look at the playbook for what the antithesis of the 2012 autopsy revealed. donald trump s playbook is that. it s the antithesis of it. not on tone.
the california republican convention following the debate. bobby jindal. yes. lindsey graham, after making an initial splash. a number of candidates here. you re thinking about the top tier candidates. you have two races i think going on. you have trump, cruz, walker, maybe huckabee. in that battle for conservatives focused on iowa. you have bush, kasich, probably rubio, maybe chris christie still hanging on in that battle for the voters who are already showing the most resistance to trump, the more affluent, white collar republicans. that s a focus on new hampshire. there s still the possibility this race becomes two brackets, one emerges iowa, when that emerges from new hampshire and those are different races. a lot of people are watching carly fiorina. and ben carson. they have engaged somewhat with donald trump, each to a different effect. right. do we have any sense of what her plan is?
i believe character is revealed over time and under pressure. and so i think all of our characters are being revealed over time and under pressure including mr. trumps. why is he beating you in your home state? look, again, he s tapped into a vein in this country. people are really frustrated and angry. rubio has criticized donald trump in the past, though, particularly over his comments about john mccain. rubio has also said trump can t be the nominee because he doesn t have an optimistic message. but perhaps the candidate who needs to make the biggest moves tonight is jeb bush. his poll numbers have cratered. while he s got the money to stay in it for the long run he needs a stand-out moment tonight. all right. john roberts in simi valley out in california. 22 we ve kind of been watching donald trump proceed from new york city out to california, a couple of nights ago he flew to dallas. he had a standing room only appearance there. then last night he was on the firing deck
well for him. debate day is here. in just hours, gop presidential hopefuls will be facing off inside the reagan presidential library. i don t know how you can prepare for something. i hear everybody s coming after me. while some lower tier candidates are gearing up i m going to mix it up because i like to rumble. i read up on current issues. reporter: the front-runner was busy soaking up the spotlight. donald trump, as always, doing things his own way. mr. donald j. trump! reporter: he was on the campaign trail on the eve of the debate. making an appeal to veterans aboard the uss iowa. a historic world war ii battleship. i am with the veterans 100%. we have illegal immigrants that are treated better by far than our veterans. reporter: tuesday vice president biden taking his gloves off, sharply denouncing trump s rhetoric towards latinos on illegal immigration.