POLITICO Playbook: DEM DEBATE DAY! TRUMP STAFFS UP -- ‘THE ESTABLISHMENT LANE’ might be a mirage

TOP TWEETS -- Jim Acosta (@Acosta): "Rubio jokes he's no Rick Perry: 'apparently he couldn't remember what he wanted to say. I remembered it too well'" ... @blakehounshell: "Christie dropping out of the presidential race is not causing any traffic problems on my servers" ... @daveweigel: "In 2013 you'd have called Christie and Rubio the two brightest stars in the GOP. And they went down in a murder-suicide pact" ...

... @mitchellreports: "Clinton campaign is expected to bring on fmr Obama reelection deputy campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon to retool messaging & strategy."

By Mike Allen (@mikeallen; mallen@politico.com) and Daniel Lippman (@dlippman; dlippman@politico.com)

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Good Thursday morning. As the ferocity of the New Hampshire returns sunk in, the Republican establishment began to realize that if Cruz crushes it in South Carolina, there may never BE this three-way race that the pundits have been promising. It'll be Trump, Cruz and a few also rans. An adviser to one of the establishment candidates sounded more chastened than optimistic: "All of us running against Trump underestimated the power of the show."

And the show's ringmaster, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, takes a bow on the front page of The Wall Street Journal as "The Man Behind Trump Being Trump," by Monica Langley in Concord, N.H.: "Lewandowski already is expanding the Trump team to include top advisers from the campaigns of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum ... and Ben Carson ... He has also expanded the Trump campaign's current roster of 150 employees in 20 states. ...

"Since Tuesday night, the campaign has been hiring staff in Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi; adding to existing operations in Florida, Ohio and Missouri, and shifting the New Hampshire staff to Massachusetts and elsewhere. ... [I]n his previous job as New Hampshire director of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, [Lewandowski] met Mr. Trump backstage at its 2014 conference in Concord.

"A few months later, Mr. Lewandowski got a call to visit Mr. Trump ... 'Are you better than all the campaign managers out there?' the billionaire asked. Mr. Lewandowski recalls that he replied: 'I think I am, and I'll work harder than any of them.' He took the $240,000 a year job without first telling his wife, with whom he has four children under 10 years old."  https://on.wsj.com/1KHnvII

--"Rand Paul Campaign Manager Signs Up With Marco Rubio," by WSJ's Reid Epstein: "Chip Englander ... will be a senior political adviser ... for the Midwest. ... Englander ... ran Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner's successful 2014 campaign."  https://on.wsj.com/1Kd0aP5

FIRST LOOK - Matt David, chief strategist for the Kasich super PAC, New Day For America summons his best Steve Schmidt with a statement on the Bush campaign memo for S.C.: "First Jeb Bush boldly announced he would win Iowa. After spending millions, he came in 6th place. Next he declared he would win New Hampshire, spent millions more and came in 4th place. Then he [tried] to camouflage his disastrous loss with a memo announcing a new and improved strategy for South Carolina -- go on the attack because that's definitely going to work. ... If Bush was going to sell, he would've sold."

BACK AT THE RANCH ... "Ryan faces moment of truth with House conservatives: The new speaker has gone out of his way to smooth things over with the right flank. Now he needs their votes on a budget they hate," by Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan: "Ryan ... finally has a chance to change the governing dynamic that's stunted progress in the House for a half-dozen years. ... Ryan sees the 2017 budget logjam in starkly simple terms - and he's expected to lay them out Friday morning at a closed party meeting.

"Either conservatives will support the spending blueprint at levels agreed to last year, ... or they could be forced to skip the appropriations process ... '[Y]ou do not want to relinquish power to the White House ... by not doing a budget resolution,' said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, ... who's been working with Ryan. ... It would be a real embarrassment for Ryan - a former Budget Committee chairman - to be forced to abandon the budget process. Many in GOP leadership nonetheless say it's a distinct possibility." https://politi.co/20qnomN

MEDIAWATCH -- "Meet the Girls on The Bus: This Is What NBC News Looks Like in 2016," by Mattie Kahn in Elle: "Overwhelmingly, the reporters on the trail for NBC in 2016 are women. Andrea Mitchell, Chris Jansing, Kelly O'Donnell, Kristen Welker, Katy Tur, Kasie Hunt, and Hallie Jackson have all hit the road this season, tracking down presidential candidates all across the United States. As they file stories from breweries in Des Moines and diners in New Hampshire and thousands-strong rallies all over America, their very existence dispels the myth of 'the Boys on the Bus.'"  https://bit.ly/20q4CMi

--LORI MONTGOMERY promoted to WashPost deputy national editor. https://wapo.st/1O4lFMM

CRUZ ALUMNI -- "Cruz disciples take aim at Obama's immigration orders," by Seung Min Kim:"Scott Keller and Chip Roy - who served in top roles in Cruz's Senate office - are now litigators on behalf of Texas, leading the lawsuit against Obama's unilateral actions ... Cruz is a mentor who instilled key lessons the lawyers keep in mind during heated legal battles."  https://politi.co/1o1NQXl

TO BE ANNOUNCED at 11 a.m. ... "Jean Case Elected Chairman of National Geographic Society Board of Trustees" - Release: "[P]hilanthropist, investor and Internet pioneer Jean Case, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Case Foundation, has been elected chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Geographic Society. Tracy Wolstencroft, CEO of Heidrick & Struggles, was elected vice chairman. ... Case spent more than 20 years in the technology sector, including as a senior executive at America Online. ... The Society also announced ... that John Fahey, outgoing chairman of the Board and former CEO of the National Geographic Society, is retiring from the board."  See the release.  https://politi.co/1TUzEvZ

TRAILER OF THE DAY - "House of Cards - Season 4 - Official Trailer": "Frank and Claire continue their pursuit for power, battling everyone in their way, including each other." Hits Netflix March 4 https://bit.ly/1Qa9mWO

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YUGE STORY - "Top Clinton adviser [Jake Sullivan] sent 'top secret' messages to her private account," by Rachael Bade: "Sullivan both initiated email conversations and also forwarded along messages with sensitive information, and he sometimes added additional content on the email chains in question ... Those chains are now maintained at the highest classification level for national security information, though the campaign has long maintained they were not marked classified at the time they were sent." https://politi.co/1o5jt2Y

BITE DU JOUR - MARK HALPERIN on "Morning Joe": "Jon Meacham likes to quote Thoreau. I like to quote Haley Barbour, who said in politics 'good gets better, bad gets worse.' Right now, Sanders has money, momentum and message. And everything that could go wrong in the Clinton campaign is going wrong right now. There's distrust between the candidate and the staff ...

"T]hese next two states, Nevada and South Carolina, should be better for her. But Sanders has momentum and in those two states, the best she can do is come out with victories that stabilize her campaign. The real battle will be in March, where she is going to be almost certainly now at a financial deficit."

TONIGHT'S DEBATE: Sanders v. Clinton, 9 p.m. ET in Milwaukee, hosted by "PBS NewsHour," in partnership with Facebook and sanctioned by the DNC. Live on PBS, and streaming on "NewsHour" website. Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff moderate. CNN will simulcast the debate, and livestream on CNN.com.

WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED HERE! Wolf Blitzer to moderate GOP debate at the University of Houston on Feb. 25, the last RNC sanctioned debate before Super Tuesday, March 1. "Dana Bash, Hugh Hewitt and Telemundo News Maria Celeste Arraras will serve as questioners."  https://cnn.it/1SJGwNz

IF YOU'RE IN S.C. ... HAPPENING TONIGHT -- Politico Caucus Double-header: Join us as we bring POLITICO's South Carolina Caucus members together for a deep-dive discussion, featuring a variety of perspectives, about the economic policy issues facing the next president. Speakers include AEI's James Pethokoukis, National Economic Advisor to Presidents Obama and Clinton Gene Sperling, Cornell University Professor Robert Hockett, Economic Commentator Stephen Moore, Clemson's Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Jaime Harrison, and South Carolina Republican Party Chair Matt Moore. At 5:30 pm in the Alumni Hall, College of Charleston. RSVP  https://bit.ly/209mn7O  Livestream www.POLITICO.com/live

--Energy and the Election in South Carolina -- Join us as we bring POLITICO's South Carolina Caucus members together for a deep-dive discussion, featuring a variety of perspectives, about the energy policy issues facing the next president. RSVP  https://bit.ly/1SBndFz Livestream  www.POLITICO.com/live

INSIDE THE CAMPAIGNS -- NYT A22, "How a Debate Misstep Sent Marco Rubio Tumbling in New Hampshire," by Jeremy W. Peters and Michael Barbaro: "At his campaign headquarters in Washington, some of the younger staff members were so deflated that senior advisers met with them on Sunday morning to reassure them the episode was just a hiccup - the kind that happens all the time in presidential races." https://nyti.ms/1Rs1teu

MARGARET CARLSON on Bloomberg, "Beware a Wounded Clinton ": "Maybe it's HDTV, but stagecraft is so obvious now. Clinton's sense of entitlement comes through, while Sanders' basic decency is apparent whenever the camera lands on his wild hair, bad suits and Brooklyn accent."  https://bv.ms/1o5mNuW

--BENJAMIN WALLACE-WELLS on NewYorker.com, "The Clintons Have Lost the Working Class":"Most arrestingly, Sanders won voters with an income of less than fifty thousand dollars by 2-1." https://bit.ly/1QsXwRI

--FORMER AMB. HOWARD GUTMAN on Politico, "Why Sanders' Win Is Good for Clinton": "He's pumped a huge amount of oxygen into a race that could easily have been starved for attention. And even more importantly, he's made sure that the biggest story in the race isn't Clinton's own background." https://politi.co/1POPPco

STATE OF THE ART -- "How Bernie built a fundraising juggernaut," by Ken Vogel: "The donations flooded in at a record-setting pace ― $6.3 million in the 23 hours after the polls closed and counting ― at one point coming so furiously they overwhelmed the interface that processes them. ... [D]espite appearances, the strategy behind Sanders' small-donor juggernaut is deceptively sophisticated, using cutting edge technology and techniques to create a perfect fundraising storm never before seen in presidential politics. The architect of the strategy is a 39-year-old former Marine named Tim Tagaris, who has quietly developed a reputation as the left's leading practitioner of digital and email fundraising."  https://politi.co/1TdUo29

--"Rubio, Ted Cruz hit Scott Walker's email list - again and again and again," by Shane Goldmacher: "The emails to Walker's list have been so frequent - POLITICO found at least 15 since the eve of the Iowa caucuses - that sometimes they land only hours apart, and with parallel messaging. 'You did it tonight!' came the subject line from a Cruz missive near midnight after the Iowa caucuses. 'We did it, [the recipient's name]!' was the subject line of a Rubio email just after 8 a.m. the next morning. Rubio sent one with the subject line: 'I just got off the phone.' Cruz: 'Just got off the phone.' ... [T]he firm managing Walker's list, Granite Lists, also rents out for $10,500 the right to email his 'entire file' a single time, and charges $7,000 to email only past Walker donors." https://politi.co/20WVEYR

OBAMA ALUMNI - "Jay Carney: Obama supports Hillary Clinton," by CNN's Tal Kopan: "'I don't think there is any doubt that he wants Hillary to win the nomination and believes that she would be the best candidate in the fall and the most effective as president in carrying forward what he's achieved,' said Carney ... The White House declined to comment on Carney's comments ... Carney said Obama won't make an official endorsement until the race is decided, but his intentions are clear." https://cnn.it/1TdSLl5

EZRA KLEIN on Vox.com, "The rise of Donald Trump is a terrifying moment in American politics":"The rest of us are here to make friends, and it makes us boring, gentle, kind. ... [Other] candidates are checked by institutions and incentives that hold no sway over Trump ... I honestly have no idea what he would do - or what he wouldn't do."  https://bit.ly/1WfGoTP

MONEY HONEYS -- "Bush backers reach out to Christie donors : After governor's withdrawal, other establishment GOP candidates rush to claim his Wall Street supporters," by Morning Money's Ben White: "Top Christie donor targets include Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen and Anthony Carbonetti, a long-time chief of staff to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani now at the Wall Street firm Perella Weinberg Partners." https://politi.co/1otDEaG

--"Christie's bridge to nowhere: How his 2016 bid went wrong: Relentless campaign, high-profile endorsements yield only a dismal sixth-place finish," by Daniel Strauss: "Christie now appears foolish to have hung years of work on a single contest. But his New Hampshire-or-bust strategy was never a first choice; it was a backup plan adopted only after years of attempts to broaden his appeal--ideologically and geographically--were thwarted time and time again."  https://politi.co/1mu5Okm

FIRST LOOKS - Per a Hillary campaign official: "Hillary for America will release a new web video compilation of local news footage from the last week about the Clinton campaign organization ramping up in key states with primaries in March." 2-min. video  https://bit.ly/1LiCeEW

--AMERICA RISING SQUARED, AR's 501c4, is releasing a new 2-minute web video called "The Socialist Democratic Party," produced by Lucas Baiano:  https://bit.ly/1QXhVkI

-- RNC's Raj Shah, in a forthcoming memo, "Less Money, Mo Problems": "Given her campaign's looming cash crunch ... Clinton will be forced to headline a series of high-dollar, closed-door traditional fundraisers with financial firms, Wall Street titans, corporate lobbyists, the pharmaceutical and fossil fuel industry, and every other Democrat boogeyman (that she routinely assails on the campaign trail) under the sun."  https://bit.ly/20NdC3E

SNEAK PEEKS -- Popular Science magazine's new cover story, "Barack Obama on How To Win The Future: Questions & Answers with Popular Science," by Cliff Ransom: "Along with running the free world, President Barack Obama has spent the past seven years guiding U.S. science and technology policy. The initiatives and goals he puts in place-in clean energy, space, medicine, education, nanotechnology, and more-help direct research, which in turn directs the future. With one year left in the Oval Office, the president talks about what he's achieved, what's left to do (a lot), and why being a nerd is one of the best ways to serve your country." www.popsci.com/Obama The cover  https://politi.co/1POPXIX

--TIME's longevity issue , has the cover, "The Alzheimer's Pill: A radical new drug could change old age." TIME's Alice Park: "The stakes couldn't be higher ... for the world's aging population. In the U.S., one-third of Americans over 85 are already affected by Alzheimer's. Globally, nearly 50 million are living with dementia, most of which is caused by Alzheimer's, and absent effective drugs or other interventions, that number is expected to double every 20 years. ... [Frank] Longo's drug is noteworthy because of the promise it showed in mouse studies and because it's been shown to be safe in humans. But what really sets it apart is that it attacks Alzheimer's in an altogether different way from the drugs that preceded it." See the cover.https://bit.ly/1WeKWJY

CLICKER - "The Titanic sails again: Inside the lavish ￡300 million replica of doomed ocean liner, which is due to set sail in 2018" - The Daily Mail's Chris Kitching: "[T]he Titanic II will stick to the incredible detail of the original ship ... with a maiden voyage planned from Jiangsu, China, to Dubai ... [and has] a small swimming pool, Turkish baths, a gym with Edwardian equipment and a squash court." With 32 images on one pagehttps://dailym.ai/1Kdguzk

VALLEY TALK -- "Never miss important Tweets from people you follow," by Mike Jahr, Twitter's Senior Engineering Manager: "Introducing a new Home timeline feature, giving you the option to see the best Tweets first. You follow hundreds of people on Twitter - maybe thousands - and when you open Twitter, it can feel like you've missed some of their most important Tweets. Today, we're excited to share a new timeline feature that helps you catch up on the best Tweets from people you follow. ... If you don't [like the new feature] ... you can easily turn it off in settings."  https://bit.ly/1LiAlYQ

WASHINGTON, INC. -- "Prime Strategies, a National Public Affairs Firm, Launches in Washington and New York": "The Washington, D.C. office will be managed by Adam Sharon ... [who] most recently served as Communications Director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led by Ranking Member Ben Cardin (D-MD) and previously by Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ)."  https://politi.co/1TdTGCc

OUT AND ABOUT -- Amazon premiered its new series, The New Yorker Presents, last night at Landmark's new Atlantic Plumbing Cinema. The screening was followed by a Q and A with Amazon's Joe Lewis, showrunner Kahane Cooperman, Jane Mayer and moderator Jonathan Capehart. "The series is a witty, whimsical and informational collection of documentary and narrative shorts, cartoons and even poetry segments that bring the contents of the New Yorker to life ... Amazon will debut the show on" Tuesday. Trailer  https://bit.ly/20NLWf0 ... Sneak peek clip, "Protect and Serve," by Jesse Moss https://bit.ly/1KH1xp9

SPOTTED: David Litt, Kelley McCormick, Kiki and Tim Burger, Peter Selfridge, Susan McCue, Michael Elliott, Stephen Goodin and Bibb Hubbard, Steve Clemons, Marie Harf, Rebecca Brocato, Nihal Krishan, Michael Caruso, Sena Fitzmaurice, David Mercer, Emil Hill, Nan Aron, Ken Grossinger, Lyndon Boozer, Christina Sevilla, and the Amazon team: Brian Huseman, Peter Binazeski, Sarah Hudgins, Sally Fouts.

--Director Adam McKay joined Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Jack Reed (D-RI) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) last night for a discussion of the 2008 financial crisis and presentation of "The Big Short," which has five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. The Big Short joins Lincoln and Selma as one of the few Oscar-nominated feature films to be shown at the U.S. Capitol.Trailerhttps://bit.ly/1Xr9Knc

BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Bruce Gates, SVP of external affairs at Altria (h/t Tim Burger) ... Alexandra Bass

BIRTHDAYS: Jeb Bush is 63 (bro tip: 43) ... Sarah Palin is 52 (h/t Trump) ... Alex Conant, comms. director for Marco Rubio's campaign and the pride of St. Paul (h/t Caitlin) ... James Gleeson, comms. director to Dr. Jill Biden and Becerra alum ... Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) ... Matt Bennett, SVP of public affairs at Third Way and the pride of Syracuse ... Steven V. (Mr. Cokie) Roberts (h/t his many grateful GW students and alums) ... Politico's Michelle Zar ... ProPublica's editor-in-chief, Stephen Engelberg, an NYT alum ... Elizabeth Lauten, founder and president of Audeamus Communications ... Johanna Maska, formerly of the White House and the LA Times, now head of comms. and marketing at Karmic Labs, wife of CJ, mom of Hugh ... Chris Hensman, State Department FSO & currently senior advisor to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy ... Pascale Puthod, journalist for The World Debate and Global Questions on BBC World News (from Paris, based in D.C.) ...

... Rob Hendin, formerly of Team Face the Nation and the pride of St. Louis, now executive producer for Atlantic Live (h/ts Ben Chang) ... Ilana Ozernoy, chief of staff to the counsel for NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio (h/t Kamran Mumtaz) ... Nicole L'Esperance, Rep. Earl Blumenauer's comms. director (h/t Samantha Greene) ... Sean McCluskie ... ABC News alum Andrew Springer ... Chris Mather, managing director at Purple Strategies ... Casey Aden-Wansbury, comms. director, Global Public Affairs at Airbnb and an Al Franken alum (h/ts Jon Haber) ... Kyle Buckles, comms. director for Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) ... EB Nesbitt ... Chris Mather (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) ...

... Jeff Branch, Rep. Patrick Murphy's political director on his FL Senate campaign (h/t Kiara Pesante) ... former HHS secretary Mike Leavitt, now founder and chairman of Leavitt Partners ... Jess Sarmiento ... David Stern ... Scott Berkowitz, president and co-founder, RAINN ... Politico alum Burleson Smith ... Jerri Ann Henry, campaign manager and public advocate for the Campaign for Platform Reform & Protect Internet Freedom ... Ryan Steusloff ... Elizabeth Heng, chief of protocol and member Outreach for the House Foreign Affairs Committee ...

... Eric Wasserman Stern and Scott Wasserman Stern ... Emily Kirlin, director of member services for Sen. John Cornyn's Whip office ... Jay Reich, partner at Pacifica Law Group and a Commerce alum ... Brian Kaveney ... Theodora Blanchfield ... Chris Hensman ... Olga Davidson ... Mark M. Palmer, senior policy advisor to Assistant Senate Minority Leader Dick Durbin ... Nancy Tait ... Evan Siegfried ... Sarah Sayeed ...Burt Reynolds is 80 ... Tina Louise is 78 ... bandleader Sergio Mendes is 75 ... Sheryl Crow is 54 ... Jennifer Aniston is 47 ... Damian Lewis is 45 ... Taylor Lautner is 24 (h/ts AP)

DESSERT -- "Burger King's next conquest: Hot dog king," by AP's Candice Choi: "With the launch [on Feb. 23], Burger King says it will offer hot dogs at all 7,100 of its U.S. restaurants - more U.S. locations than any other chain. ... To get workers excited, Burger King says it enlisted Snoop Dogg and Charo to star in training videos." https://yhoo.it/1PEAbwL

--"Pottermore to publish eBook of the stage play script 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts I & II'": "a new play by Jack Thorne written to be enjoyed live in the theatre, is based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling ... The play will receive its world premiere in London's West End at the Palace Theatre, July 30, ... and is the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage."  https://bit.ly/1LiA73U

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