Needless to say, the religious right is quite giddy that Rubio and Cruz finally fired on Trump.

But I sense they are still quite afraid that their time is up.

Rich “please stop calling us racists” Lowry pens:

Rubio and Cruz interrupted, insulted, and mocked the Republican front-runner. Rubio obviously had the moment of the night, in the space of a couple of minutes exposing Trump’s utter vacuity on health-care policy, catching him repeating himself when Trump said he doesn’t repeat himself, and mocking Trump’s signature lines. Cruz was more prosecutorial and not as memorable but effective nonetheless. If I had any criticism, it was that they weren’t relentless enough and occasionally let up on the attack (this Peter Spiliakos post from a while ago nailed it). At one point, all three of the candidates were talking at once — this is what Trump has done, force everyone down to his level of reptilian politics where all that matters is trying to talk over people to establish your dominance.

Lowry’s pretense of wanting to take the high road but-Trump-forces-us-to-play-his-game is a backhanded acknowledgement that so far the old “conservative” coalition’s own import has faded quite a bit.