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Rubio: Man-Boy Candidate Promises Less of the Same
Marco Rubio by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0.
While a boy’s face on a man’s body may be the romantic ideal for some, it serves only to reinforce Republican primary voters’ skepticism about Sen. Marco Rubio’s lack of skepticism about government interventionism. The Florida senator’s political instincts have led him to believe, among other things, that the US immigration crisis can only be addressed through comprehensive reform, a mutually-exclusive term favored by pundits, progressives, and “soft values” Republicans like Rubio.
When the senator from Florida invokes “context” in attempting to explain away his since-disavowed support for amnesty, one is reminded of a petulant child attempting to rationalize wrongdoing rather than a respectable grownup who straightforwardly asks for forgiveness and moves on.
Rubio, it seems, possesses a Peter Pan complex in reverse: a political boy who desperately wishes to be a political man. One gets the impression of an eager-beaver naif easily seduced by big, juicy ideas advanced by big, juicy government.
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that the man who cited US security in supporting the invasion of Libya should do the same when defending his risible, regrettable belief that — absent government handouts to Florida sugar growers — the America is at risk of “losing the capacity to produce our own food, at which point we’re at the mercy of a foreign country for food security”. (Other than pundits refraining from affixing “-gate” to every political scandal, my political dream is an end to invoking “security” when discussing energy issues and, now, in the case of Rubio, sugar. Sugar).
That Sen. Ted Cruz won the Iowa caucuses while issuing full-throated opposition to ethanol subsidies further suggests that Rubio is the Bobby Darin of contemporary American politics: a relatively young man whose moment has already passed while trying desperately to appeal to an audience that has discovered rock’n’roll and in no mood for a new cover of “Beyond The Sea.”
Rubio fluently speaks the language of limited government while giving the impression that he’d be much more at home speaking Rockefeller Republicanism. His boyish desire to please does not befit a man seeking to be a conservative president in the mold of Coolidge or Reagan.
Conservatives rightly fear that Rubio is, in the words of Peter Robinson, a little soft. For example, while comfortable enough deflecting blame onto Obama and the Democrats for government shutdowns, it doesn’t even seem to occur to Rubio to do what the moment seemed to demand: namely, taking credit for them.
Seemingly far more confident in the American experiment, the equally young Cruz stands in direct contrast to Rubio in his frumpiness and breath-of-fresh-air arrogance. Cruz, unlike every other candidate in the field, offers the tantalizing possibility of a return to self-government, where Hillary Clinton promises more of the same and Rubio the weak beer of less of the same.
Published in Politics
Some might call the bravery a combination of ambition, cold strategy, and an unnerving comfort with risk. And to be honest, I’m not particularly bothered by hearing Cruz’s reputation for bravery characterized this way.
I’m with She: none of these candidates is perfect, or pure. Politics is a dirty game – politicians resort to spin and so forth because it works. I know what it’s like to be a fairly smart but socially awkward person. If I were to play the game of politics, I might well feel obligated to play it as Cruz does – the game favors slick moves, perhaps especially when you’re short on inborn charm, and why would anyone get into this crazy game except to win?
Of course, I’m not playing the game of politics. Aside from likely having no talent for it, the nastiness of it repulses me. I just don’t see how you’d get involved without any nastiness at all.
None of this is to say that people’s perception of a gap in affability and likability between Rubio and Cruz isn’t real or doesn’t matter: it does. I just haven’t yet been persuaded by the argument that Cruz is less likable because he is way more evil than the other guys. They are all playing the same game, more or less.
I liked Rubio better when he starred in “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”:
If Cruz was plainly lying about ethanol producers benefiting from deregulation, then explain his support from the major producer to whom he directs the farmer. What could Cruz offer him that is worth more than the subsidies he currently profits from?
Will Cruz convince his fellow Republicans to join him in deregulation and elimination of subsidies? Probably not. But I’d rather have a president who preaches the merits of deregulation and free markets than a president who goes along to get along. A candidate who won’t even propose such things will almost certainly not pursue them… and does nothing to move public opinion in favor of limited government.
I don’t want to hear the same old Republican tropes about tax cuts. That’s tweaking a corrupt system. It’s managing intrusions rather than ending them. Outright elimination of subsidies and regulations? That’s progress. (I’m not against tax cuts, but they are the wrong focus.)
Like Midge, I don’t believe Cruz is pure and completely trustworthy. He’s just the best option.
If Rubio beats Cruz, I will vote for him.
Except it is, apparently, true:
From the Mother Jones article (hardly Cruz supporters!) linked to above.
Ditto, and with a smile on my face.
It’s a temporary marriage of convenience. Both the oil industry and the ethanol industry want the blend wall removed. The oil industry wants it done away with because they know that ethanol can’t compete on price and fuel efficiency. They want ethanol removed from their fuel because it hurts their bottom line and only has a place in the market because of government subsidies and mandates.
Ethanol wants the blend wall removed because it is a hard ceiling on how much ethanol gets put into gas and therefore limits the growth the ethanol industry can achieve. However, ethanol cannot compete with fossil fuels in a fair and free market, so once the ethanol lobby gets rid of the blend wall, it will turn it’s efforts to getting government at the state or federal level to pass emissions standards for gasoline or ethanol requirements in gasoline higher than they currently are in most places.
Wasn’t this a similar attack to that which was launched against Goldwater? That since Goldwater was against a civil rights bill that he was against civil rights? It wasn’t that he had concerns about title 2 and title 9 of the legislation. He was trying to keep the black man down. Just like Cruz is trying to keep the green man down. Try again.
Ted Cruz. Batman or Joker? I can’t decide. Does he suffer suspicion and public defamation and ire in order to serve justice and the people’s best (albeit unrealized) interest? Or does he toy with us intellectual inferiors in a play for achieving his obfuscated ends?
I don’t trust him, perhaps because I can’t understand him. I am but a bear of little brain.
I don’t trust Cruz to play it safe or always “fight fair”. I do trust, though, that his enthusiasm for the Constitution is genuine. What motivates this enthusiasm? His motives for being “really into the Constitution” might be venial (starting with youthful pride in his own smarts, etc), but I’m not sure that matters much – as the field guide to Cruz put it:
Maybe the antagonistic style Cruz has cultivated so far would get less of value accomplished during a presidency (or maybe not). I don’t trust Cruz to pick only wise strategies, either. But I do trust him to be calculating enough to try something new if the old strategy doesn’t work.
Not sold that Cruz is the best option yet – frankly, I wonder whether I’ll ever know enough about politics to be reasonably certain of the best option. Like Skipsul, I still have doubts about how well Cruz can connect with voters who don’t already identify as conservative. And..
I agree. I’m definitely not in the “You’ll never get me to vote for Rubio!!!” camp.
This is a distraction from the pure mendacity of Rubio’s position on Gang of Eight. “Talk is cheap”–for Cruz but not for Rubio? Really?
So much to unpack. Let’s start with the last assertion. Nation states act in their own self-interest and ally themselves with other nation states to achieve their strategic goals even if those nation states have deplorable human rights records. Our alliance with the Soviet Russia to fight Hitler on the eastern front was such an alliance for near term strategic goals. The failure after the war was that the West was too concessionary as it allowed Stalin to lock up several Eastern European countries under the Russian yoke essentially fulfilling the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Patton may have been right to attempt to blunt Stalin’s ambitions but American leadership and public opinion were not on his side.
The current disintegration of Iraq is directly attributable to Obama’s abandonment of a fledgling democratically-elected coalition government (as leaning toward Iran as it was) and his refusal to leave an American force behind to give pause to those who had designs on tearing apart Iraq once more. Yes, America has allied itself with bad actors and the Wahabist strains of Sunni Islam are abhorrent but even states like Israel will and have found it necessary to deal with states like Saudi Arabia and Jordan for their strategic interest to remain a viable state.
Rubio has articulated for some time that building a coalition of allied Sunni states is the only way to eliminate ISIS and for the moment contain Assad (in the midst of Obama’s impotence) and contain and blunt Putin’s ambitions to be a major influence in the region where they had been absent for decades. Cruz has said he wants to surgically and somehow strategically carpet bomb ISIS and get the hell out leaving yet another vacuum and leaving Russia in the region unchecked.
Rubio is not promoting nation building in this case. He is advocating that those players in the region who have an existential stake in making it a more stable region be given the resources and opportunity to make that happen. Cruz seems to be issuing platitudes. Rubio appears to promoting credible plans that could have more lasting benefits.
Nice Rubio hit piece. Gheesh. You just forgot a key point in an essay that has a lot of puny complaints about the candidate who is polling the best against Hillary Clinton — Cruz isn’t likable and will send Dems to the polls in droves to vote against him in fear of his Supreme Court hard line public position as well as many other things.
Can’t wait to read your hit piece on Trump and his many flip flops on immigration, eminent domain, Planned Parenthood, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Obamacare and on and on and on.
I read that article this morning and it is woefully light on detail other than to say that voting against Defense spending is akin to killing soldiers yourself. The good Congressman forgot to mention that in those NDAAs there was authorization to detain Americans indefinitely as suspected terrorists. Hint, hint, Mike Lee of Utah was also against this. And it funds the NSA blanket collection of Americans’ phone metadata. So it seems the good Congressman is trying to wrap himself in the flag to take cheap shots at Cruz while only giving half the story.
Sugar subsidies!! The horror!!
Really?! You’re hanging this pip squeak issue by a senator from Florida (sugar economy, anyone?) on one of our classiest and most electable candidates as a reason he is disqualified?!!
Good luck with President Hillary Clinton and her foreign policy, her comprehensive immigration policy, her subsidies and crony capitalism.
Lincoln’s chief aim during the civil war was to keep the United States unified, to not let them become divided. Now our politics is so divided that most of the presidential candidates are very divisive figures. They don’t talk about working with the other side anymore; they all seem to want to ‘break furniture’ in their own way.
I know trying to return to some sort of unity is totally out of fashion these days, but I do believe that if anyone has any hope of bringing Americans together more than dividing them even further, that person is Senator Rubio (or Ben Carson, but he doesn’t stand a chance). I am looking for someone who can communicate conservative ideas to Americans, and I believe that there are still, even now in 2016, a lot of Americans who would agree with basic conservative ideas on a lot of issues, if they were explained clearly. So, that’s why I support Rubio, even though I realize that the electorate as a whole is probably not looking to buy what he’s selling.
I don’t think having a Republican president with strong communication skills would be a ‘weak beer’, nor do I find anything ‘refreshing’ about Ted Cruz’s arrogance, or anyone else’s for that matter.
I will concede that Cruz is further to the Conservative Right than Rubio. In a vacuum he would be a wonderful candidate. Unfortunately, we need to win the General Election in a country that is very divided. Rubio is slightly less Conservative and that will allow him to appeal to more Independents. His softer stance on Immigration (although he no longer believes in amnesty) makes it possible for him to appeal to some Hispanic voters who otherwise would not vote for a Republican. He is charismatic and does well in televised debates. Polls show he has the best chance to beat Hillary head-to-head. If Rubio wins, I believe he will listen to members of his own Party when it comes to big issues like Immigration, Budget, etc… and will not govern against the will of his own Party. Better that than supporting Trump or Cruz and possibly losing the General Election to the Democrats.
Duplicate comment: I thought that couldn’t happen?
Exactly. Does eliminating the Sustainable Fuels Program= gutting Defense? I understand that there are 10,000 JAG’s in the US Military, does paring that down to 7,000 or 5,000= ‘gutting the military? Does scrapping defense department studies of transgender accommodations & unit effectiveness constitute ‘gutting the military’? That NR article was thinly disguised status quo gruel.
Let’s be conscious Cruz and Rand Paul voted with 25 Democrats in sympathy with Obama on the NDAA. The question remains about their no votes and how noble their goal was to kill the arguable overreach of limiting the rights of U.S. terror suspects and phone record collection and if they were aware that enough ‘yes’ votes from across the aisle eliminated the possibility of a presidential veto.
Let’s also be conscious of what was at stake in the bill for Israel, our most stalwart ally in the region:
If President Obama hadn’t pulled our troops out of Iraq, they would still be babysitting a people with anti-American values under leadership increasingly hostile to American occupation… with ever-increasing costs because of that hostility. That’s assuming American voters did not also object to permanent occupation, which they increasingly did (perhaps so much as to factor into Obama’s election).
As I have argued many times, military strategy must be designed within the constraints of domestic political realities. When since WW2 have American voters consented to decades-long occupation of other nations? Whatever the merits, Republicans never win that media fight.
How would Rubio hold together that Sunni coalition? With further occupation. We would be babysitting both Iraq and Syria, praying that peoples of the region continue to welcome our presence when the barbarians are subdued. Putin would bide his time, knowing that American resolve has a calendar.
I applauded President Bush for the invasions. But this strategy of occupying unstable areas while pretending not to own them and expecting German-like stability for decades ad infinitum is not viable.
Well, thankfully foreign policy is not conducted via plebiscites or by heeding the advice of man-cave reclining diplomats or angry drunks in taverns…present company excluded, of course.
Sometimes a long-term presence by US forces is a wise strategy and serves as a deterrent to mischief and adventurous inclinations from bad actors. Whatever. Wherever.
Maybe so. But we were going to pull out with or without President Obama. Iraqi officials wanted us gone. Were we prepared to suppress an uprising from nationalists as well as jihadists? Was the growing resentment of American voters to perpetual war inconsequential?
Good strategy or not, endless occupation wasn’t going to happen.
See? I can play the “What if…?” game too.
Let me put my argument this way, Brian, and then you can have the last word.
Planning for a 20-year occupation of a society culturally opposed to ours — a modern, affluent, Western, democratic and sadly divided society — is like planning for a 20-year war with only 10-years-worth of manpower or fuel.
Votes are a strategic resource. We don’t have sufficient resources for Bush’s grand plan, which Rubio seems inclined to repeat. Moreso than generals, it is the responsibility of presidents to recognize that limitation.
It’s actually more complicated. According to Leon Panetta who has related that at the time virtually all the leaders of the various factions in Iraq told him and other State and DoD reps that they wanted U.S. troop and security presence to remain but wouldn’t go on the record publicly to say so.
Further, Obama wasn’t willing to negotiate with al-Maliki who wanted a residual force but also wanted criminal jurisdiction over the remaining troops. Obama’s generals and military advisors advocated keeping a residual force and some security assets to help discourage and deal with any insurgencies that might emerge. Obama appears to have made the decision that he could appease the electorate by pulling all the forces and security assets out and use al-Maliki as a scapegoat saying his demand for jurisdiction was intractable and insurmountable.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/380508/no-us-troops-didnt-have-leave-iraq-patrick-brennan
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/15/obama-ignored-generals-pleas-to-keep-american-forc/?page=all
http://time.com/3453840/leon-panetta-iraqi-troop/
That’s a good point. I wonder how that might have played out, with al-Maliki telling his people one thing and telling us another.
Would he have been able to maintain control if we rejected his public calls for independence? Would Iraqis have patiently waited for their still-fragile government to effect their unheeded demands? Might that umbrage at continued occupation fed insurgency recruitment?
Thanks for bearing with me.
RabbitHoleRedux: Rubio could have a bright future if he’d allow himself to grow into it.
I think Marco is willing. I think it is the people of Florida who are obsessed with a small thing. Immigration is a very tough nut to crack, I’m not surprised when Marco got to DC, it was more complicated then he thought, and than his constituents thought. It tripped up Reagan and G W Bush as well.
Rubio has come to the exact solution, but you stopped listening.