A two-night CNN Republican Town Hall began Wednesday night with Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson making final pleas to South Carolina voters ahead of Saturday's primary.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson led off by agreeing with President Obama's decision to nominate a new Supreme Court justice before his term ends.

"We have a Congress that for some reason has become the peanut gallery and just watching what the executive branch and the judiciary do," Carson said. "Not really stepping up to correct some of the incorrect decision that have been made by the Supreme Court."

Asked what his litmus test would be in selecting a nominee, Carson cited Scripture: "By their fruit you will know them."

Carson's message to Palmetto State primary voters fell in line the message GOP lawmakers hope translates during the general election. "We the people have the responsibility to care of the indigent in our society, it's not the government's job," Carson told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

Carson fielded questions on national defense, accepting a position as U.S. Surgeon General -- he said he's "not looking for a job" -- and protecting the Second Amendment. Carson isn't sure if he needs a gun, but said "it's a nice thing" to have.

The soft-spoken candidate, often overlooked during GOP debates, again took a back seat to other Republican presidential candidates.

Animosity within the Party

Rubio and Cruz vowed to unite the Republican Party at a time when smear campaign grow more divisive by the day.

On Wednesday, the Cuban-American senators played the blame game on different playing fields. Cruz, still a litigator at heart, spent about 25 minutes scolding GOP front-runner Donald Trump for filing a Cease and Desist letter, inviting Trump to sue him because "in any defamation case, truth is the best defense."

Cruz pointed at Trump's record of supporting Planned Parenthood and Democratic before turning his attention to Rubio's involvement in the 2013 "Gang of Eight" immigration reform bill.

"Both Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are following this pattern that whenever anyone points to their actual record, they start screaming liar, liar, liar," Cruz said.

Rubio took a non-confrontational approach, saying his feud with Cruz is "not the core of my campaign."

"I don't know, this back and forth is silly," Rubio said. "Ultimately it's not about me, it's not about Ted, it's not about Donald, it's about what is this country going to look like when my 15-year-old daughter graduates from college."

Playing the Long Game

Cruz pandered to South Carolina primary-goers while Rubio spoke to a general election audience. The difference was in what town hall attendees had to say.

Both condemned Obama's plan to visit Cuba next month -- each said they wouldn't visit the Communist country under its current regime -- while touting their own foreign policy record, but Cruz received questions about his evangelical roots, how oil prices affect the American economy, and whether is constitutionally allowed to be president.

"It was the act of being born that made me a U.S. citizen. Under the law the question is clear," Cruz said. "There will still be some that will try and work political mischief on it, but as a legal matter this is clear and straightforward."

Rubio's line of questioning focused on social issues. The Florida senator hinted at equal rights for women in the military by saying "it's not about the gender, it's about the job." He correlated a child's education with the Child Tax Credit, which give parents a refund when filing taxes.

The town hall was held about three hours from last summer's church shooting in North Charleston, yet Rubio was the only one asked to address racism. He touched on the disproportionate number of Latinos and African-Americans growing up in broken homes and dangers neighborhoods that lead to underperformances in the classroom.

"A child born with four strike against them is going to struggle to succeed, unless something breaks that cycle," Rubio said.

Rubio said he faced racism as a youth living in Las Vegas. Kids heckled his Cuban roots, but Rubio never thought it reflection America as a whole.

"If you look back at the history of this country we have some blemished in our history that I believe even to this day that we are fighting through, " Rubio said. "What I think is extraordinary about America is that we've fought through that. That we are a nation of perpetual improvement."

Cruz Edges Trump in New Poll

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday found Republican primary voters chose Cruz by a 28-to-26-percent margin over Trump. Rubio came in third with 17 percent.

This may be an outliner for similar surveys, some which have Trump leading by double-digits. Trump held a 13-point lead over Cruz in the same NBC/WSJ poll taken last month. It also didn't factor South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's coveted endorsement, one given to Rubio hours before CNN's first town hall.

"In my campaign for president today, I got the endorsement of a governor of Indian descent, who endorsed a presidential candidate of Cuban descent, who tomorrow will be campaigning alongside an African-American Republican senator," Rubio said. "All three are doing that here in South Carolina. That says a lot about the Republican party."