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Rubio: Slow & Steady Wins the Race?
I’ll admit I’ve always been partial to Marco Rubio. He, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry were my top considerations. But with the latter out of the race, it seems to me that Rubio is the presumptive GOP candidate.
Craziness, you say? Let’s look at my line of thinking …
Trump is an aberration and possibly a Democratic stalking horse. I don’t expect him to gain much support as other candidates drop out. Speaking of which, all-around nice guy Ben Carson seems to be starting to implode. I’m sure Jeb Bush won’t exit anytime soon, but he seems to have peaked despite his $100 million. That leaves Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and Rubio.
Despite having voted for Ted as a Senator, I don’t see him garnering the support to put him over the top. I am certainly not discounting Carly; I like what I see, but we saw a lot of these surges in 2012. I’ll wait to see if she has serious staying power, especially because the MSM has turned on her now that they realize she could take away Hillary’s coveted prize.
That leaves Marco. Can slow and steady win the race?
He has shown serious chops in both GOP debates, and people are noticing.
His favorability rating has grown with time.
He has consistently been one of the top second choices of GOP voters.
He is youthful, handsome, and he can speak naturally and directly to a voting block of growing importance that the GOP must win over in order to have a chance at solid victory.
And, as previously mentioned, he has serious policy chops, especially in the foreign policy arena.
Yes, he has some pitfalls. He’s only a one-term Senator. (What could go wrong?) He alienated a lot of conservatives with his initial immigration efforts — which I think he would admit was a mistake. But he offers steady, serious, and clean-cut.
Meanwhile, despite being celebrated as the leading candidate, Donald Trump isn’t the choice of 70-80 percent of GOP voters. Trump is a wild card, with more risk than possible reward. I think Peak Trump is ~30 percent and seems to be receding already. And as other candidates follow the path of Walker and Perry, more and more of those 70 percent of GOP voters will seek refuge from the Trump and MSM co-dependent circus. Bush, Cruz, and Carson have their dedicated constituencies, but have limited upside because they have major flaws that cause people outside those constituencies to feel uncomfortable with them.
Both Rubio and Fiorina offer the GOP opportunities they haven’t had … well, ever. Both could attract votes from critical voting blocks. But in the end, I think Rubio will offer voters something they haven’t felt in a long time. Comfort. Comfort in his smarts, comfort in his policy stances (mostly), comfort in his ease on the stump, and yes, comfort in his looks and youth. Comfort. Not a wild card.
That’s why I think in the end, Rubio will secure the nomination. (And Ricochet member KarmaKaiser offers an even more more specific version of this prediction.)
Slow and steady wins the race.
Published in Elections, General
And he’s great on Pope Francis. He’s someone who properly understands the difference between a moral leader and a political leader. (It’s one of the last questions in this interview, which is worth watching in full.)
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/20/marco-rubio/marco-rubio-says-cnn-debate-had-no-question-debt-a/
And I agree with your general analysis on all points. I would be very happy with either a Rubio/Fiorina or a Fiorina/Rubio ticket.
katievs, I was intending to say that at the end, but was distracted and forgot to put it in.
I just read a really good piece at the Federalist making the same case.
Man, it’s like he plagiarized my post! ;-)
I’d be happy with either Rubio or Fiorina at the top of the ticket. I have some concern about Rubio’s chance of winning over the Trump supporters, with Rubio’s history on imagration legigislation. Wining over those folks will be a formidable challenge.
Charles & Katievs,
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Freedom!
Regards,
Jim
I don’t know if he is the presumptive nominee, but he definitely inherits the position of frontrunner in my personal primary.
I don’t believe in the “outsider” candidates either. I don’t want Bush or Kasich, or any of the also-rans from past years. And Cruz has completely lost my respect by the way he has been playing to Donald Trump. I knew that already. I realized it piercingly watching Walker’s announcement.
That was Walker from the heart. He sees Trump as a threat to conservatism and the party, and with any personal ambition now on the side he sets that out pretty explicitly, and does what he thinks he can to prevent that.
Maybe had Walker said what he really wanted about Trump at the first debate, when he was still trying to be above the fray, he could have gotten through. Probably not.
Cruz’s play just looks increasingly cynical and frankly rather disgusts me. He’s out. So I am left with Rubio.
But, but, some folks around here tell me the GOPe have everything rigged to give the race to JEB!
I think the most descriptive analogy that would fit Rubio (and perhaps any really successful candidacy), at least in the nomination process, is the standard plot line of a the old fashioned story. A protagonist, with some skill/power starts out on a quest. As the story progresses he discovers his antoganists (in this case, competitors) and tension builds (as noted by the debates, of which we have only went through 2 of 12, he performs well while not taking all the spot light and his 2nd performance seemed a bit better than the 1st), as the quests continues he gains allies (donors of defeated candidates that will not back trump), and eventually this hits into a climax of combat (6th or 7th debate; just as the Iowa Caucus kicks off); at which point assuming he wins all first 3 statea, in culmination with debate performance, it resolves with him winning and turning into a juggernaut.
This of course is just speculation but, as Leigh noted, many Republican voters may become turned off by Cruz’s lack of fight and kowtowing to Trump compared to Rubio’s will to fight. This might even (I know it’s a stretch) work to Rubio’s benefit because when Trump withers some of his supporters liked Trump first and foremost for his appearance of fight and decisive attitude. Marco delivers this (in actual truth, not vague bluster) and through repetitive success in debates he may win them over.
I don’t know that many would put it so explicitly, but I don’t know if it’s that much of a stretch. In the last debate, Cruz’s mild praise of Trump just looked weak. Why would you bother supporting Cruz when you have the real article there? Cruz only benefits if Trump gets out before someone else consolidates support as the clear alternative. And even then I don’t think he gets them all.
I saw at least one quote somewhere from someone saying they were switching from Trump to Rubio after the last debate…
I don’t know if many voters are turned off by Cruz. I can only say that I, personally, have lost respect for him.
You don’t need to win them all to get the nomination. It will be important to keep them in the fold for the general. There is also a chance that a certain percentage of them are her just for Trump and nothing else will ever get them to support anyone. That means they are a null factor.
They had everything rigged for that white haired rat Charlie Crist too.
I ran across one on Twitter the other day. (I’m not on Twitter. I read links occasionally.) A big Trump fan, in Wisconsin. I read his long back and forth with Charlie Cooke of NRO about it.
I don’t know if the guy is a Republican. Says he voted for Walker. Don’t know if he was a Romney voter. But what he isn’t is conservative. How do I know? Because he recited all the mainstream Democratic talking points on Walker. (Not just Trump’s.) He’s not quite a low-information voter, and he’s not in the liberal fever swamp — he used the vaguer language of the mainstream media. He thinks Trump can do… something. Immigration didn’t seem to be on the radar.
I don’t know if he’d be a primary voter absent Trump, but if so it won’t be for a conservative. Just one little sample.
Valiuth, your right of course, Trump’s supporters aren’t needed until the general election. The thing I fear is the country is evenly divided politically, and I’d be more confident if we were united as a party for the general election. In our favor Hillary lacks charm, and is a less competent politician than what were likely to field.
I’m not set on a candidate, but I believe that Rubio is the majority destination for Walker refugees.
I think it’s difficult to know how the race will progress. Cruz has buckets of cash, which might lead him to an Iowa/ South Carolina victory. No one knows how well Trump will do. Jeb, Kasich, and Fiorina all seem like plausible New Hampshire victors. It’s not impossible that Lindsey Graham, even, or Chris Christie could have a resurgence and win there. Once the first primaries are won, the board is cleared and the second round begins. Again, without us having much ability to know how it will go.
Traditionally, the guy with the party machinery prevails, but Jeb is a uniquely weak front runner in this regard, even if no one else is worth anything either. Perhaps Walker’s greatest weakness was his failure to build more party and donor relationships, and he’s not unique in that problem. Chasing the activists is all well and good, but they’re only a part of the contest.
I don’t see a way to victory for Carson or Paul, but other than that it seems to me that all the top tier candidates have plausible narratives.
I should state that less emphatically. I don’t mean that as an endorsement. I just do not see, tonight, where else I end up. I do not trust the “non-career politicians” on either substance or staying power. I do not respect or trust Cruz; I do not want Bush or Kasich.
If Jindal came out of nowhere I’d give him a good solid look. But realistically, I think my options are limited.
Walker tried, didn’t he? I remember reading stories — hesitation on foreign policy, and his social conservatism. He wouldn’t back down on marriage, and Wall Street wasn’t buying it. (And as someone who considered that a plus not a minus should that not make me queasy about the others?)
I also think he needed one more year. Or at least several months behind the radar.
Right. This wasn’t a “he made the wrong decision” sort of a criticism so much as a “this turned out to be too difficult” criticism. Also, although I think the substance of his foreign policy was the soundest of the candidates, he needed to spend more time learning to sound like he knew what he was talking about, and he sped up when he was talking during debates and worried about the time, a classic rookie mistake.
They’re all skills that are relatively easy to acquire. Compare McCain ’00 and ’08, or Romney ’08 and ’12, for instance (although both were pretty fluent sounding on their issue in both runs). It’s just inconvenient that governing turns out to be such a heavy time commitment and that his strategy involved so much time travelling around primary states.
To give a specific example of campaign weakness, when it was claimed that his “abolish ethanol subsidies in 2 years” policy was a pro-ethanol position, the American Motorcycle Association was keen to support him. They’re one of the biggest grassroots organizations on the issue, and the head is a big Walker guy. The campaign never found that out, though, and never used his skills. They did start, during the Summer, to reach out to more folks who weren’t from Wisconsin, but that was way too late.
Do you think we can’t unite around Rubio? I’m not a good judge of this because I really like him, as I have stated on this site repeatedly.
To me it seems Walkers mistake was actually getting in. I think had he stayed out of it officially, but worked the backrooms to line up support and money he could have kept up the anticipation for his run. Everyone was keen on him because of his record and governor status. Though he could not have known it, by being out when Trump was surging, I think, many establishment types and Trump detractors would have looked to him as the white knight to slay the Trump Ogre. If he worked on setting up a staff and making a clear plan for running he could have jumped in late and probably had the money base run to him, and he could have created a narrative of stepping in and shaking things up. Instead he got crushed by the Trumpnado. That I think stole all his thunder in Iowa.
At least with budget fights and elections in alternating years.
He also never had a wedge issue. Before Trump, maybe he thought immigration could be it. But he never had one salient issue on which he could speak uniquely with unique credibility. He could only offer more credible leadership on issues on which they were mostly on the same page. And after sounding iffy on immigration, he put the credibility in doubt. Unfair but true.
If he could have gotten Common Core repeal last year. “They all say they oppose it, I’ve done it” — that could have resonated. But I think that came down to votes in the state Senate, and they weren’t there.
There are immigration hawks and foreign policy doves who won’t. There’s some Trump enthusiasts and some racists. There’s libertarians, SoCons, and moderates who will find his positions unpalatable. There’ll be some put off by gaffes.
The question isn’t whether the party will unite so much as how many splitters there are and how they behave. My guess is that Cruz and Paul would both behave better than Newt and Paul last time, that Palin will fall in line, and Huckabee would be mostly neutral. Jeb, Walker, the Congressional and Gubernatorial party, and Carson would absolutely support him (and with a fair degree of enthusiasm). There are open questions about Trump, though, and Cruz and Paul would both need care and feeding.
I’m optimistic about a level of unity somewhere between 2000 and 2008, but it could all go horribly wrong. We really aren’t in a position to tell.
And he stinks on immigration. Only Jeb is worse. Neither is acceptable.
I could see myself staying home on election day if Rubio gets the nomination.
So nobody’s acceptable but the GOP establishment’s milquetoast moderates, huh.
Let me be absolutely clear about this. Immigration is a pass/fail for me. Rubio fails.
Yep, we’re seeing a replay of 2012. Everybody is trashing the leading non-establishment candidates, including the also-ran non-establishment candidates. First they piled on Trump. Now that Fiorina is making a move, everyone’s piling on her. They’ll go after any non-establishment candidate that looks like a threat until we’re left with a choice between Rubio and Jeb. I’d as soon vote for Hillary as that pair.
“That leaves Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and Rubio.”
Uh excuse me, Kasich too. Clearly much more experienced than Rubio. If you can get over Rubio’s immigration stance, you can get over Kasich’s Obamacare stance.
Let me be clear, too: Scott Walker was my governor, and I know his record and what he went up against. I happened to think someone who stuck to principle in Milwaukee and Madison was the best bet to stand on principle in Washington. If you think that’s GOP establishment milquetoast, we simply have a different idea of what actual conservatism means.
I’d love to have immigration be the pass/fail. It matters, but not at the expense of everything else. Religious liberty happens to be on the line this election. Rubio appears solid. I do not trust Donald Trump one inch.
And it’s for pretending otherwise for far too long when I know he knows better that Cruz has lost my respect. Nothing to do with establishment.
I have always sensed that Rubio was the real choice of the Republican Establishment. His willingness to sign on with Chuck Schumer for the Gang of Eight Amnesty Bill was too much for many of us, though.
Probably because Fiorino is a stealth candidate for the Establishment and for the US Chamber of Commerce.
Walker was a real loss because he was the only candidate who had actually succeeded in implementing conservative policies.
My problem with Rubio is that he’s less than a one term Senator. No executive experience and not even a full term in the Senate. I am learly of such credentials, though I agree he speaks well. We currently have someone in office with what amounted to the same level of experience. And what a disaster he turned out. Just because he’s on our side doesn’t mean he will make the right decisions.