Marco Rubio stopped Trump bandwagon on its tracks

I like consultant and pollster Frank Luntz. But if I have to endure watching one more of his “dial” sessions after a Fox News presidential debate, I’m going to pluck my eyes out with a spoon.

You know the sessions — the one’s in which a couple of dozen stunned Americans have to spin a handheld thingamajig to register their feelings about punchlines in a debate.

Invariably, when they speak or raise their hands, most of them are swayed in one direction or another, and the next day, the polls stay the same.

On Thursday night, the group was anti-negativity. Ohio Gov. John Kasich was the big winner in the Republican debate in Detroit. And I agree, Kasich did well. He’s always good because he knows what he’s talking about. But had it not been for the “negativity” of the past two weeks, this primary would be over. Donald Trump would be the GOP nominee.

Marco Rubio is the one to thank for that. Rubio, the senator from Florida, risked everything to give Trump a taste of the vile stuff that the billionaire businessman has been dishing out to candidate after candidate. I don’t like ugly spectacles, but this one thrilled me to the toes.

And it was just. When some kid finally hauls off and bloodies the bully’s nose, both get dragged into the principal’s office. But any principal worth his salt knows the score.

At this point it’s obvious that core Trump voters aren’t going anywhere. No matter how badly Trump embarrasses himself, his newfound party or his country (or species), they’re going to stick with him as an expression of their outrage. But what Rubio accomplished these past 10 days was to stop millions of other Republicans from climbing aboard, resignedly.

The bandwagon effect is a very real thing. I wrote about it recently. It’s when members of a feuding party drop their weapons and get in line. I can’t remember an election in my lifetime when that inclination has been stopped in its tracks like this.

I sat behind the glass of a Luntz focus group in midtown Manhattan a few years ago. A campaign I was on was testing ads — which one’s were most effective to put money behind. The subjects with, yes, dials in hand, loved the positive ads and deplored the negative ones.

Afterward, after just two hours, they were asked to recall the ads and to give their feelings about the two candidates after viewing them. They had all but forgotten the positive messaging and their views had sharply changed about the candidate who was attacked. All they remembered was the Trump University messaging, in this case.

But here’s the thing about hard-hitting campaigning. You pay a price for waging it. It’s why Trump has so many detractors and why Rubio’s negatives are certain to rise.

God knows where this presidential race will end up. But if Kasich or Sen. Ted Cruz are standing on that stage in Cleveland this summer — and that’s still possible — they’ll have Marco Rubio to thank.

William F. B. O’Reilly is a Republican consultant.