Yesterday the big contretemps was the allegation that Ted Cruz’s campaign concocted a story that Ben Carson was getting out of the race and thereby gain extra votes. Carson got all panty-wadded over it. Donald Trump is demanding the the Iowa Caucuses be re-done because of “fraud.” Presumably getting his ass handed to him once just felt so good that he’d like to repeat the experience.

The basic facts are this:

The rumor was created by the Carson campaign saying that Carson wasn’t going to New Hampshire but, rather was going home.

The rumor was amplified by CNN’s Chris Moody

The Cruz campaign picked it up and ran with it.

Keep in mind two key points. First, this kind of rumor only works if it is believeable. Second, Carson outperformed his polling in Iowa.

Big deal. Cruz has apologized, though he’s probably laughing a little bit in private. And the campaign moves on.

Last night, however, Marco Rubio was on FoxNews taking swipes at Ted Cruz over this incident.

“I think it’s time for voters to start coalescing. The candidates, they worked hard. They deserve to see this through, at least through New Hampshire. You’ll never hear me either calling for someone to drop out, or you’ll never hear about me making up rumors that someone is dropping out in order to try to get votes.”

As it turns out, the Rubio campaign was pushing exactly the same story: to wit, that Ben Carson was getting out. The whole story can be found here at Politistick. And it looks like they were still pushing the rumor even as Ted Cruz was coming under fire. I’m not going to say more because they did the hard work and deserve the traffic. You really need to read it.

Maybe Rubio will take some time from out from dispensing smarmy, condescending platitudes to apologize to Ted Cruz? Nah. And, you know what, Cruz won’t be sniveling about it on television.