Jeff Tayler’s been publishing his Sunday Secular Sermons every week in Salon, but I’ve missed a couple. Catching up, I found a good one today, “Marco Rubio’s real disqualification: New video outlines bizarre religious faith—and he wants to govern by it.” It turns out that Rubio has just issued a bizarre campaign video. . . but I’ll let Tayler handle it:
He has just put out a television campaign ad entitled “Marco Rubio on His Christian Faith.”
As a pianist taps out a somniferously bland tune that would befit an ad for a last-rites parlor, Rubio, seated against a dark backdrop, explains the delicate balance he strives to achieve in melding his faith and career as a lawmaker, as well as offering detailed, faith-inspired plans for governing the United States in a time of international turmoil and domestic discontent.
No, wait! He leaves out the plans and turmoil abroad and the discontent at home. He uses his campaign ad to talk only about religion. Aren’t campaign ads supposed to at least have something to do with politics?
Anyway, let’s dissect Rubio’s message line by line.
And then Tayler does, but I’ll refer you to the Salon article for the bloody dissection. But first watch the video below, which, even among faith-osculating Republicans, is a travesty for a political ad. It’s only thirty seconds long, but it’s not only packed with Jesus-osculation, but adds Rubio’s assertion that he’ll govern according to Christian principles (“I try to allow that to influence me in everything I do”). And remember, this isn’t an ad for a church: it’s a political ad to run on television.
Jefferson is spinning in his grave!
I once thought Rubio was a likely candidate for the GOP nomination, but he’s fallen far behind, with Cruz and Trump, equally odious, now leading the pack. I still predict that Trump will be gone by the fall. At any rate, after his parsing of Rubio’s speech, Tayler reaches his conclusion:
The crushing banality, the overwhelming unoriginality of everything Rubio says in his commercial evokes something akin to astonishment. Absolutely any convinced Christ-worshipper could have uttered the exact same words, which are nothing but boilerplate pulpiteer’s patter. That Rubio chose to speak thus before the camera shows just how abysmally low the expectations of the faith-addled are: proffer mind-deadening insipidities and sit back and await the hosannas and hallelujahs that are sure to issue from the segment of the public that will not think for itself, but has to be told fairy tales to feel comfortable about voting for a candidate.
. . . You have, Senator, a constitutional right to profess belief in whatever you want. But you have no right to do so unchallenged by those tasked with ferreting out the truth and conveying it to the public. Unfortunately, though, you can broadcast such views throughout the land with little fear of being called out by journalists, who will shy away from religion as too sensitive and personal a topic.
Given that Republicans are making Christianity and faith a major issue in their campaigns, and saying they’ll govern in a Christian way, which violates the First Amendment, it’s no longer useful nor judicious to avoid questioning their faith. The questions rhetorically posed to Rubio by Tayler should be physically posed to Rubio by reporters. It’s time for the press to stop showing undeserved respect for unevidenced faith.
And I had just read a New Yorker profile which made Rubio sound semi-reasonable, not as bad as Da Donald or Cruz…guess not.
Personally, I consider him more reasonable than Trump and Cruz. However, more reasonable than those two, doesn’t make Rubio reasonable. It’s definitely a matter of degree. Cruz, for example, is even more faith-addled than Rubio, as are Huckabee and Santorum.
I think Cruz is an egomaniac. I guess that’s the slimy sense I got, when he popped up from the audience at the end of a First Amendment event with Barry Lynn speaking. Cruz took my hand, shook it, introduced himself, and the creepiness of his gaze accompanied by the ooze of his touch make my stomach contract.
And that was before I’d ever heard of him, before he became senator, when he was just starting to get his name out.
Hilariously horrid as Trump is, and blinded by faith as Rubio is, I suspect Cruz is the most dangerous of all. Trump merely wants to be king. Cruz wants to be God.
P.S. I love that term from the article: “pulpiteer.” It’s perfect.
sub
Cruz because of his high level of intelligence and his sociopathy, in addition to an ability to demagogue is, indeed, the most dangerous man in the Rethuglican Party. Think Joe McCarthy with brains.
I have also noticed the physical similarities in Cruz’s appearance with Joe McCarthy. Of course, the similarities in their ideologies is more disturbing.
Cruz is the most dangerous candidate. I could easily see a resurgence in “witch-hunts” to out RINOs, atheists, socialists, terrorists, radicals et al. during a Cruz presidency.
Yeah, Cruz bears a strong physical resemblance to Joe McCarthy — almost as if McCarthy’s face had gotten 30 seconds on each side in a George-Foreman grill.
What a revolting experience! He’s always given me the creeps too. I think Cruz is the most dangerous of the lot too. He genuinely scares me.
There’s a reason people take an instant dislike to Ted Cruz: it saves time.
Cruz is a repugnant character on so many levels — ideological, foremost among them. And, as much as I hate to be a “lookist,” Cruz is physically repellant, the possessor of D.C.’s most punchable face. It’s said that by the time a man reaches Cruz’s age, he has the face he deserves. Fittingly enough, Ted Cruz has earned (as others have noted) the face of Joseph McCarthy. It’s a face that’s perfect for radio, combined with a whining voice that’s perfect for mime.
Apparently, no one (including his former college roommate) can stand Cruz personally. Not one of his 99 colleagues in the Senate (and precious few in the House) have seen fit to endorse him.
These chickens have now come home to roost for Cruz, in the way everybody in a position to do so (including several of his Senate colleagues such as John McCain) has taken a shot at him on the so-called “birther” issue.
It is what will probably cost Cruz the GOP nomination.
Thank you for the laugh! Yes, “It saves time.” And you make other good points, too. 1+
“equally odious”
I have a tough time processing that. I don’t consider any of the Republican candidates to be acceptable, but it is difficult to sort out who is more objectionable. It’s like dealing with degrees of infinity.
There are some I find more acceptable than others. e.g. Some accept man-made climate change while most are deniers. Some are fine with same-sex marriage. Some even accept the minimum wage needs to be increased.
As a bunch it’s hard to say there’s an acceptable one, but if you look at them on a policy by policy basis, you’d find a couple you could put up with if you had to.
This is no real surprise and nearly as obnoxious as Cruz or Trump. If you looked at his previous adds (and believe me, you cannot miss them here in Iowa) he puts out one lie after another.
Normally these guys withhold the bald face lies for normal conversation on the campaign trail, but this guy racks them up, one after the other, in a Commercial. You would think even a brain dead republican might see it but no, we call it brain dead for a reason.
Things like – after the mass shootings in California, Obama tries to take our guns away. Making bad deals with Iran and losing respect around the world. Lie, lie and lie. Rubio is a first class idiot.
Rubio doesn’t need to be a first class idiot, it suffice if enough of his voters are.
No matter who wins the GOP nomination (with the possible exception of Rafael Cruz), they’re going to have to (according to the top pundits) add a woman to the ticket as the VP candidate. Many are suggesting it will be Nikki Haley, but that may not be the best choice. Does she really have the christian conservative chops to bring in the trailer park voters? I suggest they add Kim Davis to the ticket. Now there’s a woman who will make the far right salivate in their PBR.
TRUMP-DAVUS 2016
god help us
DAVIS, not DAVUS.
Worked OK the 1st way.
PBR? In my experience, these types drink Coors, because they are that gullible.
And sub
I like his face. He’s bay far the best looking first class idiot of them all.
They are all odious, every one. Odiousness is a virtue to the Republican base voter. And so my prediction is different than PCC’s. I think Trump will be nominated.
and sub.
I think he will too, and I truly hope he does. Not because he will be easy to beat in the general election, but because he isn’t a theocrat. Either way, the Republican’s deserve him.
Republicans…damn apostrophes.
That is my current opinion as well. Trump will triumph, even though closer to the election they party would want a more centralist figure.
Whether or not Trump wins the election, it is a win-win for democracy. Not a theocrat, and it will likely be the last time the GOP can willfully entertain Tea Party predilections within their shrinking extremist base.
“they party” – the party.
NPR had an interview this morning with Pastor Darrell Scott (no relation!), identified as an African-American evangelical. While theocracy wasn’t mentioned, it was clear that Pastor Scott regards Trump as a good Christian (and further describes him as charming, hospitable and gracious). If you can fool some of the people some of the time…
(I’ve always had my suspicions that GWB was just mouthing the fundamentalist line to pretend to be a Christian. After all, Karl Rove re-created him in the image of a gentleman rancher during the campaign. Anybody know if GW has been anywhere near that converted pig-farm in Crawford since he left office?)
No relation to me either!
The Republican party has sold itself completely to construct a calliphate for Christianity. Even Trump, who really is secular, regularly lies about his faith in order to stay in the race. In this I blame Ronald Reagan who started this trend. But perhaps even he would be appalled at how far his party has wandered from the 1st amendment.
One might argue that Dick Nixon started the trend when he invoked god’s interest in national politics when he got in trouble at the Watergate Hotel. But Ronnie did exploit the opening.
The only thing relevent about Rubio is the height of his heels!!
It always surprises me how many citizens, including most politicians, apparently have not read the Constitution. Sort of the way so many who claim to be religious have apparently never read the bible.
And the constitution is quite short, much shorter than the Bible.
…explains the delicate balance he strives to achieve in melding his faith and career as a lawmaker, as well as offering detailed, faith-inspired plans for governing the United States in a time of international turmoil and domestic discontent.
How can we sit at the table of reason and rationality, when people must yell through the fence of divine commandment?
Especially with international conflicts. Their morality offends us. Our morality offends them. We bomb them, they bomb us back. We celebrate when we kill our most wanted. They have a list of most wanted. Even if there is a rational underpinning, it’s automatic fighting words when we start with, “Our God says that your God…” The stakes are too high to start the conversation yelling.
Egos can — and do — get bruised at the table of rationality. But a wise ego will learn, heal, and heal stronger. But an ego is not the so-called immortal soul that’s at risk even without stepping to the fence.
Little Marco looks and acts like he just got home from Sunday School. Somebody get this kid an ice cream cone!
Too true!
Eh, this doesn’t bother me all that much. It’s all empty meaningless talk. He says he’s gonna do what God wants him to do. But that’s almost as much a tautology as ‘free gift’.
A Demoncrat who does what god wants him to do is a Democrat. A Republican who does what god wants him to do is a Republican. People generally aren’t in the habit of worshipping gods they substantially disagree with.
Believing your morality to be divinely given is a problem, but only if your morality is a problem in the first place.
Since Rubio doesn’t say what exactly it is that god wants him to do, this is just him showing off how faithful he is to everyone else. In terms of substance (good or bad) it is completely empty.
Rubio’s ad is pandering to Christians: “see I’m just like you, vote for me”. Who knows how insincere/hypocritical any of the candidates are. The scary part comes when you begin to wonder if they really do think they hear god talking to them through their hair dryer. The one really important thing in Jeff’s article: journalists need to start asking pointed questions of candidates who proclaim their belief in god.
Yes, the ad in question is aimed at just one target: evangelical caucus-goers in the Hawkeye state. Rubio is looking to peel off some of Cruz’s evangelical support, and to pick up whatever may be left of the support among evangelicals Ben Carson once had.
Although the ad is cynically executed, I don’t think Rubio is himself a stone-cold cynic. I’m pretty sure he believes in belief (unlike Donald Trump, who is cynical to the core, especially when it comes to his own, laughably devout, Presbyterianism). Whether Rubio actually himself believes any of the nonsense he spouts in the ad is anybody’s guess.
The real problem is not that Cruz and Rubio are very religious. Jimmy Carter was and is very religious, yet, since leaving office, most progressives have nothing but good things to say about him. The real problem is that the leading Republican candidates pander unceasingly to the religious right, whose goal, under the guise of “religious freedom” is to establish a Christian theocracy in this country. The religious right is not a bunch of individuals babbling their nonsense. It is a well-financed movement that is active in the political arena and has made significant gains over the last ten years. This movement is a clear and present danger to all people who, regardless of their other views, adhere to Enlightenment values. And it has ensconced itself into the heart of the Republican party, the party of religion. As I have commented before, advocates of free speech and free thought who get upset about the rantings of the far left or regressive left or authoritarian left (whatever you want to call it), which is politically impotent in the United States, are being distracted by the real threat of the religious right and thus playing right into its hands.
Paul Rosenberg has an excellent but chilling article on the religious right as a movement. If you read this article, you will become aware of exactly where the real threat is coming from.
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/16/this_is_the_religious_rights_radical_new_plan_the_very_real_efforts_to_create_an_american_theocracy_in_plain_sight/
I understand this political movement began in the mid to late 1940s and came out of the closet during George W. Bush’s evangelical-tainted presidency. I saw some of that coming-out first hand at Andrews Air Force Base. A few years ago, I found a book documenting most of this time period (until around 2000, I think) on Amazon. There is more, in the movement’s own words, under the search terms “seven mountains”, dominionism” and “dominionist.” The military is just one part of one of those seven mountains: the governmental mountain. If I find the book, I’ll come back with a link to it for you.
Here’s the book: American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 1942-1993. Amazon carries it. I’ve not read it yet, though I bought it. My own “wound” is still too fresh.
The “Religious Right” as we imagine it today has roots going back to Billy Graham and Francis Schaeffer and others of their ilk, traceable to the Forties and Fifties. It began to coalesce as a meaningful political movement, however, with the emergence of the Jerry Fallwell/Pat Robertson/James Dobson wing of activists during the Nixon years (’69-’74) and gained its toehold as a political force during Reagan’s time in office.
These religio-political activists have pushed the Republican Party, and movement conservatism more generally, steadily to the right. But it’s been a case of mutual manipulation: While the Religious Right has forced the GOP to adopt socially conservative planks to its platforms, and to pay relentless lip-service to its principles and goals, the Republican Party does so essentially to keep the “values voters” pacified as part of its base, and to fire them up come election time. Yet the Party has shown little real will, on the national level at least, for enacting either abortion reform or the other kulturkampf issues dear to the Religious Right’s heart into meaningful law or policy.
Here’s some quotes by Republican Barry Goldwater:
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.
…..
The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom…. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are?… I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”
“I am a conservative Republican, but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don’t hurt anyone else in the process.”
“The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others,”
“I don’t have any respect for the Religious Right.”
“Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell’s ass.”
“A woman has a right to an abortion.”
Can you imagine any Republican candidate of today saying such things? You think the Republican Party might have been hijacked by the Christian Right?
Amazing to think that when Goldwater ran for president in 1964 he was such a far-right outlier, when in today’s Republican party he’d be disparaged as a RINO and would likely be “primaried” from the right by a Tea Party candidate, especially in a state as conservative as Arizona.
With his civil libertarian principles and contrarianism, Barry G would come off as a breath of fresh air in today’s GOP.
Was he Jewish?
Goldwater was of ethnic Jewish ancestry on his father’s side. His mother was a WASP, and Goldwater was, at least nominally, a member of the Episcopalian church.
Goldwater’s Jewishness was something that made his early far-right John-Birch-Society-type supporters queasy.
Thank you. That does explain a few things.
I imagine the strongest on the non-theocratic side of the party cynically see themselves as having to protect their riches: The more abortions, the fewer poor-to-the-point-of-weak-sickly-and-government-dependent. Alan Grayson famously said the Republican healthcare policy had two points: “(1) Don’t get sick, and (2) If you do get sick, die quickly.” It’s more cost efficient and could even lead to an evolutionarily stronger breed of workers, while the very rich can live like hemophiliac princes. (Yes, this is all overgeneralized, but if I’m right about enough of them, their effect is still felt.)
The religious right has had some success on the national level, at least at the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case. However, they have been much more successful on the state level, since the Republicans control so many state legislatures and governorships. The Democratic party under Obama has been a dismal failure politically,indeed totally inept, on the state level.
For more background on the success of the religious right, see this article from the Political Research Associates.
http://www.politicalresearch.org/2013/05/28/redefining-religious-liberty/
By the way, this site is an excellent resource in learning about the religious right. It has published several in-depth articles on this topic.
The dismal state of the Democratic Party is largely attributable to the catastrophic results of the 2010 off-year election. It swept extremist Republican into office all over the place and since it was a census year allowed them to gerrymander districts to ensure future success for conservatives. They simultaneously moved to weaken union membership, pass voter ID laws, and restrict access to the polls. All of this was designed to further reduce Democratic Party influence.
There are many reasons this happened, of course. I partly blame President Obama’s attitude of conciliation during his first two years which led to disappointment among his supporters who didn’t show up at the polls in 2010.
You are quite right that “President Obama’s attitude of conciliation” played a major role in the Democratic party’s many failures in off-year elections. Until perhaps a year or two ago, Obama seemed psychologically incapable of grasping that playing nice with the Republicans would get him nowhere. He didn’t understand that the Republicans, for both racist and policy reasons, would never reach any accommodation with him unless forced to do so. He seems to have finally learned the lesson, but so much damage has been done that it will take many years to repair it.
I keep hearing rightwing commentators explain the Trump/Cruz/Carson phenomenon as arising from the base’s outrage over the Republican establishment’s having “rolled over” for Barack Obama and I wonder, what planet have these people been living on for the last seven years?
The religious right tried for the presidency once and found it painful. That’s when they decided to begin raising their politicians up practically from the church level. This floods the field with supporters, when one is anointed to run for a higher level position. It also paved the way for infiltration of the US Congress and SCOTUS. They had and continue to have a long term vision. They’re not focused on the USA alone.
30 seconds of delusion. Defenestration comes to mind.
As a leader of the free world the US of A is making ‘free’ seem like a concept for morons. By this I mean, declaring to lead a country, with a fanciful friend and without a psychologist present 24/7.
Nice guy, meet them everywhere but his prescription needs a look at.
I glanced at the comment section following Tayler’s article and saw the expected charges of bigotry, hatred, and intolerance made against him. The religious really truly seem to believe that faith is sacred and ought to be immune from harsh criticism. Moreover, they make little distinction between attacking ideas and personally attacking the people who hold them.
“He … he … he called religion stupid!”
Now repeat a dozen different ways, in a dozen different voices and styles, all tethered to the main theme of butthurt shock, and behold the rational response of the religious.
Yes, my dears, your immunity is gone. You never should have had it — assuming you ever did. Bring religion into the public square like this and gosh, look what you get! Jeffrey Tayler is not afraid to tell us what he really thinks … nor are we. If you don’t like it, then hey, don’t create a cultural situation where someone like Rubio can make a campaign ad like this and expect it will help get him elected.
People should announce their religion the same way they sheepishly admit to holding on to a childhood superstition during weak moments when nobody is looking. Well, okay then. Nobody’s perfect. We atheists are very ready to be understanding.
+1
The twisted religious ideology and upside down religious freedom ideas of this republican party are just a piece of the danger that confronts this country. The democrats have a smaller share of the over-religious as well. Just ask Hilary about her lovely religious upbringing and how much it means to her.
The violent culture and disregard for other humans who don’t look and talk like they do is an equally unpleasant trait. Guns and more guns and bomb the hell out of everyone we don’t like. All of the republicans running scream for more military spending and how second class the military is under Obama. The facts are just the opposite but they don’t care. The U.S. military budget for 2015 was nearly 600 billion. We spend more than the G20 put together and want to spend more. It is a sick and very disturbing group out there and religion is only part of the problem.
We never spent like this for the military during the cold war and now the enemies are all around us and they are going to get us. Just ask the Republicans. But they can distract the media from all of this with much more fun, side line subjects like abortion and same sex marriage.
Buzz Buzz…… Or in this case, maybe a Nemiah Scudder reference is more appropriate…
As a betting man, I’m still not inclined to take a position against Rubio, unless the odds were long and favorable.
The GOP will not nominate Trump or Cruz if it can avoid it. And both of them are viewed negatively by huge numbers of voters, including Republican primary voters who are currently supporting other candidates, potentially setting both up for precipitous falls as voter attention focuses, whether due to their own gaffes, or new revelations, or the happenstance of changing current events.
One possible path to the nomination for Rubio is this: If Jeb! doesn’t do better than mid-single digits in the Iowa and New Hampshire voting, and if his South Carolina polling numbers remain similarly mired, there will be strong pressure on him to withdraw from the race before the SC primary on February 20. If he does drop out, the logical remaining candidate for him to throw his support to is (notwithstanding their recent sniping) his former protégé Marco Rubio.
That support might not mean much in terms of switching voter support (since Jeb! doesn’t have much such support), but it would free up Jeb’s donor base (and thus keep Rubio from having to dance to Sheldon Adelson’s tune). More importantly, it would free up that great big heap of establishment endorsements (including the one Bush recently received from South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham) that Jeb! has been sitting on since he announced in the race. Such endorsements, especially when accompanied by joint appearances at local campaign events, can be crucial to the retail politicking that goes on at the state primary and caucus level.
And Rubio is the best retail politicker of the three leading candidates. He came out of nowhere as a virtually unknown backbencher in the Florida legislature to take the 2010 Republican US Senate nomination away from a popular, centrist former two-term governor who was considered a shoe-in for the seat, and to crush the opposition in the general election. Although he isn’t the vicious counterpuncher that Donald Trump is, and though he lacks the elite debate- and legal-training of Ted Cruz, Rubio is faster on his feet than either (as those who have watched the last few GOP debates have seen) and is nothing if not loquacious.
Moreover, Rubio doesn’t bear the repugnant personality traits of the others. His persona is, essentially, that of the Hialeah (which is to say, proto-south-Florida-Cuban-American) Beaver Cleaver, which would also make him a more formidable general election candidate than the other two (something more-savvy Republican primary voters who, more than anything else want to reclaim the presidency, are sure to notice).
This isn’t the time, a couple of weeks out from the first vote that actually counts being cast at a caucus, to count Rubio out of the race.
Hmmm… I see what you mean. May I ask your thoughts on Fiorina?
I think she’s terrible. She was a terrible CEO at Hewlett-Packard, a terrible candidate for the US Senate from California in 2010, and is now a terrible presidential candidate. I hate the dishonesty with which she’s run, especially her lying diatribes against Planned Parenthood.
During the Republican debates, nonetheless, I root for her as the sole girl against a stage full of bullying boys. She presents herself well when speaking there, as you might expect someone who has gone toe-to-toe with the guys in a boardroom to do. But I get the sense that there’s something slightly crazy about her at the edges — and that it’s waiting to make a mad dash to the center yelling “Ollie Ollie oxen free!”
I could never bring myself to vote for her, and can’t see such an opportunity ever presenting itself anyway.
I wondered whether anyone else saw it. The Planned Parenthood propaganda goads me, too, especially because it’s so clear that she’s lying, but people hear what they want. I wanted to know whether she’s only lying or whether she’s also a bit of crazy psychopath, and whether anyone else saw the hint of crazy.
Heh. Not everyone. I don’t hear what I want! I want her/them to say rational things!
Agreed!
Everything you want to know about Carly was shown in her support of the Iowa Hawkeyes in their bowl game versus the Stanford Cardinal. Despite being a Stanford alum, which is in her home state of California, she decided to root for Iowa. She was rightly called out for some magnificent pandering.
I suppose your analysis is plausible. The beauty of being a pundit (whether amateur or professional) is that even when you’re wrong (as many pundits often are), there are no consequences. They just keep on opining as if nothing happened. Just ask all the Republican pundits prior to the 2012 presidential election. Shortly before the election, Republican columnist Peggy Noonan predicted a Romney win because she that Romney had more lawn signs than Obama. This brilliant analyst of the American political scene is still going strong. If you’re right, maybe you can start a new career. You can certainly do no worse than the current crop of pundits.
I would take issue with one statement you made, namely that Rubio was a backbencher in the Florida legislature. As Wikipedia puts it:
“Later in 2000, Rubio was promoted to be one of two majority whips, and in 2002 was appointed House Majority Leader by Speaker Johnnie Byrd. He was elected Speaker of the Florida House in September 2005, and served as Speaker for two years. Upon leaving the Florida legislature in 2008, Rubio started a new law firm, and also began teaching at Florida International University, where he continues as an adjunct professor.”
I do not know how well he was known to the general public in Florida, but he was certainly not a backbencher.
Yeah, Rubio rose up to the leadership of the lower chamber of the Florida legislature in the latter part of his tenure there. He didn’t really make much of a name for himself until his last legislative session when he served as Speaker, by which time it was clear to political insiders that he was on his way out to pursue higher office. Even then, he was largely unknown outside of Tallahassee and his home district.
He essentially came out of nowhere (over 20 points behind) to surge way ahead of Governor Charley Crist for the Republican Senate nomination, and then stomped both Crist (then running as an independent) and the Democratic nominee in the general. He did it by-and-large through grass-roots politicking.
The ironic thing is, although he’s now being touted as the “establishment” candidate, he made his career by running as an outsider, bucking the Republican establishment (which was solidly behind Crist). He went to Washington in 2011 as a non-traditional politician, a Tea Party favorite.
The scary thing is that Rubio is essentially as rightwing as Ted Cruz. Their main policy (as opposed to personality) difference is on immigration. The difference there is explained by Rubio being the true son of the south Florida Cuban exile community (even if his family did leave the island during the rightwing regime of Fulgencio Batista rather than the leftwing regime of Fidel Castro, as Rubio originally claimed), while Cruz is a rolling stone who fetched up in Texas and whose father just happened to have come from Cuba, lending him no particular allegiance to any immigrant or Latino community.
Your knowledge base, analyses, and fact-pacted, coherent presentation are so good, why aren’t I seeing you on PBS NewsHour? You are far better than their usual two guys!
Pardon the typo: packed, not pacted.