As next debate nears, trailing candidates soldier on in obscurity

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Bill de Blasio bounded into New Hampshire with a turnaround plan for his floundering presidential campaign: opposing robots.

The New York mayor predicted that a newfound focus on protecting American workers against automation through imposition of a "robot tax" could lead to his electoral salvation.

"People are responding to it," he insisted to a smattering of reporters over the weekend, noting that the issue even allowed him to find common ground with an archenemy, Tucker Carlson of Fox News. "That is the kind of thing that causes a lot of people to pay attention."

So it goes for the dozen or more presidential candidates whose place on the campaign trail straddles obscurity and oblivion. With donor money drying up, poll numbers going nowhere and the media losing interest, candidates struggling with single-digit (or even zero-digit)