Things Get Testy Between Rubio, Bush

Sure, Donald Trump and Ben Carson lead the polls as anti-establishment candidates, but Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio each are trying to be the No. 1 establishment pick. Early in Wednesday night's debate, the friction showed when Bush hammered Rubio for missing too many votes as a senator, reports NBC News:

• Bush: "Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term and you should be showing up to work. I mean literally, the Senate, what is it, a French work week? You get like three days where you have to show up. You can campaign or just resign and let somebody else take the job."
• Rubio: "I don't ever remember you complaining about John McCain's vote record. The only reason why you're doing it now is because we're running for the same position and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you."

Twitter thinks Rubio won the fight, reports the Washington Post, which crunched numbers on tweets with the help of an analytics partner. About 60% of those tweeting about the spat gave Rubio the upper hand. And consider this assessment from Maggie Haberman of the New York Times in a live blog, about an hour after the exchange: "I'd like to point out here that Jeb has been a non-factor in this debate ever since Rubio owned that exchange with him about missed votes." (More Republican debate stories.)