Marco Rubio repeats speech line amid attacks he's too scripted

If Marco Rubio was hoping to allay concerns that he's too reliant on talking points, he probably didn't help his cause at a Monday rally in Nashua on the eve of New Hampshire's primary.

It happened as Rubio launched into a discussion of the challenges parents face in the 21st century.

"We are taking our message to families that are struggling to raise their children in the 21st century because, as you saw, Jeanette and I are raising our four children in the 21st century, and we know how hard it’s become to instill our values in our kids instead of the values they try to ram down our throats."

Then, rather than pivoting to his next point, the Florida senator circles back on the same theme, using nearly the exact same line right after he'd just uttered it.

"In the 21st century, it’s becoming harder than ever to instill in your children the values they teach in our homes and in our church instead of the values that they try to ram down our throats in the movies, in music, in popular culture."

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Rubio briefly pauses after the "our" in the second recitation of the "ram down our throats" phrase. Whether it's because he's recognized the repetition is unclear, though.

This storyline became a prevailing theme of the 2016 campaign beginning with Saturday night's debate in Manchester, as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie blasted Rubio as inexperienced and whose campaign was based on a "memorized 25-second speech." Rubio played into the attack as he repeatedly during the exchange said some variation on this line: "This notion that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing is just not true. He knows exactly what he’s doing."

Rubio defended his repeated use of the line in interviews the next day, saying it was something he believed "passionately."

"It's one of the reasons why I'm not running for re-election to the Senate and I'm running for president," he said Sunday on ABC's This Week. "This notion and this idea that somehow, oh, this is an accident — Obamacare was not an accident."

Recent New Hampshire polls show Rubio, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Florida governor Jeb Bush in a tight battle for second in New Hampshire and Christie a few points behind. Donald Trump, meanwhile maintains a double-digit lead.