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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
Rubio is among the best of the talkers. In his one attempt at doing, he was taken to the cleaners.
Rubio needs to complete one term with no major errors before he takes the presidency. He’s young. He has time.
He shouldn’t be on the VP list for anyone but a governor. Someone on the ticket should have executive experience.
Fiorina/Jindal? …Romney/Fiorina?
While I agree, there’s no evidence voters care about executive experience. Perhaps this has factored into Rubio’s thinking.
What I hate is I’m being slowly forced into a position I might vote for Trump. Right now my last hope is Cruz, who I recognize is a long shot. But if it comes down to ¡Jeb! or Rubio I will be hard pressed not to vote for Trump.
This was my rationale until Monday. Unfortunately, while he may have time, we don’t.
I’ll take the risk on immigration with Rubio a million times before sacrificing everything else for a pretty nearly equally bad risk on immigration with Trump.
Rubio is Jeb’s Mini-me. He’s Jeb Lite for people who can’t take Jeb straight.
I suppose I’m in the same boat, except I don’t feel bad about considering a vote for Trump.
As far as I’m concerned he’s just another candidate, doing the usual candidate stuff- yet I am confronted by people freaking out because they think he will overthrow the Republic just by running for office.
I can certainly understand why he’s been so successful at real estate, because he’s plainly managed to live rent free in certain peoples’ heads.