Republican hopefuls may take sharper aim at Trump

WASHINGTON -- Gladiator season may have arrived in the fight for the Republican nomination.

Three days before the next Republican presidential debate, signs abound that some rivals of billionaire developer Donald Trump are taking aim at his decisive lead with attacks on his divisive rhetoric and vague policy.

"There will probably be more elbows thrown at that debate," Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

The field would narrow, he added: "There's not enough hard cash to go around to pay campaigns in these states in order to keep 17 candidates alive."

From the campaign to cable television, some of Trump's rivals are testing ways to hobble his bid, since the mogul's own bombast and lack of policy details have not.

"Someone has to bring him down," Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said last week. "I'm not going to sit quietly by and let the disaster that is Donald Trump become the nominee."

For all of the GOP hopefuls, the CNN debate Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, is the last chance for several weeks to claim the national spotlight. Pope Francis is poised to eclipse national politics with his tour of the hemisphere, football season begins and Congress faces serious decisions about whether to fund or close the government.

Over the weekend, Trump's rivals campaign-tested their approaches, which seemed aimed at his credibility and his smash-mouth style.

"Mr. Trump says that I can't speak Spanish," Jeb Bush, speaking Spanish, said Saturday in Miami. "Pobrecito (poor guy)."

And Carly Fiorina, whose face Trump ridiculed in a Rolling Stone interview, tried dismissal.

"Donald Trump is an entertainer," she told reporters in Dover, New Hampshire. Leadership is not "about how big your office is, it's not about how big your airplane, your helicopter or your ego is," she added in another appearance.