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Does Marco Rubio Know What He’s Doing?
Maybe saying Marco Rubio is clueless is a little harsh, but the most recent did debate did confirm a lot of my fears about him, even if his chief critic was blatantly hypocritical.
The issue of readiness to be the president came up, leading to an exchange between Marco Rubio and Chris Christie in which Christie intimated that Rubio is just a Republican version of Obama. But what really sunk Rubio was his endless repetition of the same talking point. He even responded to Christie pointing that out by repeating the same canned lines again. I imagine it must have been very painful to strong Rubio fans. But pretending it doesn’t bring a serious flaw to light won’t make that flaw vanish.
The problem with Rubio is that he’s a good public speaker, but that doesn’t automatically translate to presidential ability. It’s been clear from watching his past performances that he cuts and pastes parts of his stump speech into debates. The question that mattered was whether he was able to do that so eloquently because he knew what he was talking about or because he was well-trained. Last night was significant evidence for the latter.
It was especially devastating for Rubio because it spoils his greatest comparative advantage. It wasn’t just a “Maybe Marco doesn’t get monetary policy as much as he’d like us to think?” moment, it was a moment many people will remember when they’re next tempted to nod their heads in agreement with him as he waxes eloquent.
He was like the kid at the Science Fair who delivers a great presentation for a great project, but gets so flustered when the judges ask questions that it soon becomes obvious the parents did the project for him. It is far more discrediting than just forgetting what your fifth step was.
That said, all of them have the same problem with canned sound bites over real knowledge. In fact, the great irony was that Christie was bashing Rubio’s repetitiveness while looking into the camera and telling people that governors are way cooler than senators — the skit he does every single time he has the chance.
If we want to fix politics, we have to look beyond the appearance of skill to discover if the skill is actually there. In the end, procedural democracy can’t function in a world of 140 characters. When candidates are bashing talking points as a talking point, we need to spot that, too.
Published in General
Even Babe Ruth missed hanging curve balls.
Because they are religious. And if we accepted them, didn’t just let the left do the talking… they would be conservative.
And, they wouldn’t be illegal. Having a stake in the country is the deciding factor…. Democrats welcome them, we don’t.
So are blacks. How’s that working out for Republicans?
A couple of points:
First, if you are forming your opinion of who to vote for based on the content of one so called debate, then do us all a favor: stop voting. Rubio did not come off well in this exchange, there’s no doubt about it. But neither did Christie. And, as I’ve said, tossing stones at each other is playing in to the media’s hands.
Second, it’s a valid question to ask. I am, and have been for some time, a Rubio supporter. But I have my concerns about his ability to govern as an executive. And he should be able to answer the question better. That said, here is what Rubio meant, and I think he’s right: saying that the disastrous results of the Obama Presidency stem from Obama’s lack of executive experience is just wrong. Those results stem from the fact that we elected a leftist ideologue who set about doing things that are horrible. So, elect someone who has the mindset and go do the opposite. There’s nothing wrong with that, thought Rubio didn’t say it well.
Third, I don’t want to elect a chief executive who’s going to wake up every morning trying to solve my problems. That guy hasn’t a clue what my problems are, nor how to fix them. If Christie is elected, he’s going to find some Federal snow shoveling program to put in place and force me to pay for it with taxes on lattes or something. I don’t want that, do you? I want a guy who wakes up every morning thinking about how to do two things: roll back the nanny state, and protect America from international threats. Only those two things. And frankly, I’d be happy if all he did was the latter. The former can be done by the members of the house and senate, and all the President has got to do is sign the bills.
So count me in the camp that isn’t so convinced that Rubio doesn’t know what he’s doing. To use his own words, “He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
That’s exactly right. When i saw it, I thought Rubio looked silly, but I did not think it was the big deal everyone has made it since. So he froze at a debate. Is that supposed to be a predictor of a presidency?
And all the candidates are “canned.” They come prepared with talking points. Do you think anyone can go into one of these things without preparation?
As far as i’m concerned it’s a tempest in a tea pot.
I think that this is all correct. It was an awful moment in the debate, and overshadowed his abortion response, which I thought was one of the best moments in the debates so far. It’s entirely possible that it will be decisive tomorrow, and that tomorrow will be decisive in the primary as a whole.
That said, while we shouldn’t knock the procedural importance, the importance as President of being the winner in a Ryan-Biden debate moment isn’t great, and Rubio won’t face that sort of thing from Clinton.
In case any of you didn’t know….
Christie was a former federal prosecutor
Christie was a former federal prosecutor
Christie was a former federal prosecutor
Christie was a former federal prosecutor
Christie was a former federal prosecutor
Christie was a former federal prosecutor
Christie was a former federal prosecutor
Not sure if he’s ever repeated that or not in a debate performance.
It’s like some jokes. You tell the joke once, and you’re a wit. Tell the joke twice, and you’re a half-wit. It goes downhill from there.
Was this AFTER 9/11?
Huh?
As a fan of Rubio, that was pretty tough to watch. What’s been worse (in my mind, at least) is his campaign’s inability to counter what Christie said after the fact. I agree that “managing things” (i.e. as a governor) is important; doesn’t Rubio have any kind of legislative track record that they can point to? Does his experience as speaker of the house in Florida mean anything? They had better find something, or that line of attack is not going away…
Yes, he does. But he doesn’t talk about it much.
But voters in general haven’t shown much concern for track records this year. If they did Rubio wouldn’t be the crossover conservative/establishment candidate: Walker or Jindal or Perry would be. Talking about how he beat Charlie Crist on cap-and-trade just doesn’t seem likely to do much for Rubio.
Plus the biggest thing Rubio tried to do in Florida didn’t go as he wanted. He wanted to abolish the state property tax. All he got was a small decrease — not his fault, just the reality of Crist being governor. But Rubio didn’t even pretend to be happy about it. Maybe that bugs him to this day.
Maybe that means he knows a little bit more about how hard it is to actually do things — and why some of his political promises are slightly more restrained.
It is important in becoming President to win this sort of exchange.
When you are President, the ability to respond gruffly to a barking lunatic in your face is not generally important.
Clinton isn’t a Biden/ Christie sort of a debater.