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Primary Lesson
National Review’s two cover stories on Rubio.
The two biggest losers of the 2016 cycle are Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. Bush came into the election with a reputation as a conservative reformer, a successful governor, and (by many accounts) the smarter, better of the sons of George H. W. Bush. That said, Jeb had a number of significant problems — the wrong last name, lack of charisma, support for Common Core, etc. — any one of which might have sank his candidacy, though it’s at least arguable that he was undone by his stance on immigration.
Rubio’s example, however, provides much greater clarity. To be sure, his boyish looks and lack of executive experience didn’t help, nor did the fact that he’s apparently never seen an overseas conflict that he didn’t think could be improved by the addition of American combat forces. But these shortcomings were hardly deal-breakers for most. Coupled with Rubio’s charm, eloquence, patriotism, policy cred, anti-abortion advocacy, personal story, and conservative record, the Republican Party and conservative movement would have found in him one of its best advocates in decades, had it not been for one thing: The Gang of Eight.
There is no good excuse for Rubio’s advocacy of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. Not only was the bill a stinker, it was the sort of phonebook-sized, let’s-fix-everything folly that should be considered objectionable on its face. Moreover, Rubio had witnessed — as we all did — the debacle of the 2007 immigration bill, which proved that Republicans who could otherwise endure a great deal of legislative incompetence would go into open revolt against their party about this. As an intelligent man of 40-plus years who had spent more than a decade in state-level politics, Rubio should have known this and stayed as far away from the it as possible. Even his fans considered it a significant demerit, but — for many — it was the deal-breaker. Rubio might well have lost the nomination without this, but it’s hard to imagine his campaign crashing in such dramatic fashion.
If Rubio’s career is the sacrifice necessary to make the GOP to realize that Republican voters will punish even one of its brightest stars for endorsing amnesty or amnesty-lite immigration policies, the lesson will have been worth it. The price, however, will have been a high one.
Published in Immigration, Politics
Yes? Then why do they get ‘riled up’ when comprehensive immigration is in the works?
Well unless of course it turns out that all that talk about demographic change and Hispanic political ascendancy actually turns out to be true when Trump goes down in the biggest Republican loss since Goldwater. What happens then to all this theory?
I don’t know if that is what will happen. It certainly has fair odds of being true. Worse yet, what happens when a president Trump goes full in on a comprehensive immigration plan? Will the GOP have learned its lesson then?
I think this cookie has yet to crumble and it is premature to learn too many lessons from this so soon. We aren’t even through the second act.
It was dumb. But I don’t think it was just the legislation. Also harming Rubio:
Even if you don’t personally care about amnesty, this was an inadvisable move for Rubio. Seriously damaging to his reputation. Predictably so.
The republicans wanted to pass this legislation to ‘get the issue off the table’ for the 2016 election. What a colossal blunder.
I would say the evidence from the exit polls don’t actually support this hypothesis. If anything, I think it’s arguable that if Rubio had pushed back harder on immigration it possibly could have helped him.
I would also say, as I did on the other thread, that neither Gang of Eight nor anything else is close to a sufficient excuse for the choice Florida voters made — between the kind of leadership Marco Rubio offered (and I do not claim it was perfect) and the kind of vile demagoguery Donald Trump is offering.
I hope very much that Ted Cruz can somehow pull this off. But even if he does, I am afraid yesterday was a turning point, both culturally and politically. That it was for the Republican Party what the 1992 election was for the nation.
If re-building our military, reforming entitlements, balancing the budget, improving our infrastructure, appointing originalist judges, re-asserting America’s presence on the world stage, safeguarding Israel and reviving the spirit of the nation are more important than immigration, then why are the proponents of our decades-long experiment in massive legal immigration unwilling to even discuss curtailing the influx?
Why is all of the money on one side of the immigration issue?
People say those on the anti-immigration side are one-issue voters. They should look at the pro-immigration folks.
Dude. Can you even believe it? My wife and I were just remarking on that. The voters really are that stupid. I’m sorry to say it…
The second, and only slightly less well known…
Before I can accept this as meaning information I would need to see the actual question asked, the other questions asked in the same survey and know not only if the survey was oral or written, but also by whom and in which districts in which States. Of course I would also want to know the raw numbers such as number of persons asked the question vs. number of people who actually responded to this specific question. I would also be interested in knowing the total number asked to participate vs the number who refused participation. Would also like to know percentage of turnout of voters in the particular primary and the year survey was conducted. BTW, did the survey exclude all the non-Republican party members who choose to vote in open Republican elections?
Just curious.
Yes, Rubio hurt himself with the gang of eight stuff, but he will come back. He’s too talented. He needs to be governor of Florida for a couple of terms.
Anyway I liked the way Jon Gabriel showed his evolution of his candidates. Here’s mine:
WalkerJebPerryJebHuckabeeRubioCruzI guess I’ll vote for Trump when the vote finally comes to my state. All this “never Trump” stuff has pushed me into defending him, and Cruz hasn’t much of a chance in New York anyway, and frankly my heart is not into Cruz’ candidacy.
I wonder if Shumer and other devious Democrats perceived Rubio as their biggest threat and were determined to get his fingerprints on a piece of legislation that they knew would be unpopular with the base. Still cannot understand why this supposedly gifted politician did not see this coming.
So true. (This is an article about how the ‘establishment’ Republicans (read McConnell, Cornyn et al), have announced that Ted Cruz must ‘mend fences’ and ‘build bridges’ (including perhaps an apology to McConnell for calling him a liar last year) with his colleagues in the House and Senate before they will consider whether or not to endorse him. Seriously??)
Although, as far as Rubio is concerned, I understand that, in the voters’ minds, amnesty and/or illegal immigration was not the top issue, and that exit polls from many states indicate that some form of ‘amnesty,’ (paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart for a definition of the word, if you like) is actually favored by a majority of them.
Rubio’s exit from the race gives me no pleasure, as he was the most articulate and inspiring speaker in it.
Ted Cruz says all the right things, one sentence at a time, pausing for applause and giving a weird little grin in between each line.
John Kasich, who I think must running as the candidate for the Fred Rogers wing of the party really needs to go away.
And the She family have been focusing like laserbeams, working to find the perfect word to describe Donald Trump’s unique rhetorical style. So far, leading the pack are ignoratory, abhoratory, and nugatoratory.
Oratorically, Rubio was in a completely different league from the others.
And I think his problem this year was much more fundamental than any single issue, and that this problem is very simple to explain.
While looking forward, and running as a candidate for A New American Century, his backwards-looking roots were in the old-style politics so out of favor at the moment. He’d done everything Ted Cruz had not. He’d gone along to get along. He’d worked hard to be liked by his peers. He’d crossed the aisle. He’d built bridges. He’d made deals.
He’d been a nice guy.
And you know where they finish.
Fred Barnes in The Weekly Standard, March 21, 2016
After Republicans lost the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections…the RNC created the “Growth and Opportunity Project.” Its report was based on an autopsy of the 2012…campaign and focused on the problems with five voting blocs: Hispanics, Asian and Pacific Island Americans, African Americans, women, and youth…Though Republicans have failed to connect with disaffected blue-collar voters, their plight was ignored in the report.
As a distinct group these voters were all but invisible – until Trump spotted them. Even as Trump soared in the polls, many Republican activists said they didn’t know a single person who intended to vote for him.
Marco Rubio’s actions with the Gang of Eight were influenced by the perceptions of the 2012 autopsy, prepared in the main by Henry Barbour, lobbyist nephew of Haley Barbour. Those perceptions reflected the prejudices of Republican donors, a group which shares a lot of beliefs with its Democratic counterpart. In 2012 the Democrats had cast aside white working-class males from their “Coalition of the Ascendant.” The autopsy demonstrated the same bias.
Immigration is a very real problem for working-class white males. And it sends them to the ballot box in droves.
Adios, Marco!
And I originally thought if Massachusetts-Michigan native Mitt Romney was nominated he was going to win about 40 states, everything except some northeast states, some Pacific coast states, and maybe places like Illinois and Minnesota. Well, that sure didn’t happen.
The first political rally I have attended in years was a Rubio rally one month ago with my 10 year old daughter, so forgive if this is a little rantish. I have no doubt what so ever that he would have crushed Hillary in the primary and most importantly broadened the party to millennials, suburbanites, and minorities. No candidate in the last 20 years gave us this opportunity. I guarantee you the Hillary brain trust opened up the 25 yo bottle of Macallan when Rubio started dropping. But the people are angry, so give us the least conservative governor running, a liberal, and a conservate who does not play well with others. When the people are wrong, we deserve to get the beating we deserve.
“Bitter pill for Rubio? Majority of GOP voters tonight favor offering illegal immigrants legal status over deportation: 53-55% in all 5 states.” — Chuck Todd
“Because it’s not a very useful question. Excludes middle stay-in-‘shadows’ option (which) ignores enforce first sequence. I’m with 53%.” — Mickey Kaus
“Immigration is a very real problem for working-class white males. And it sends them to the ballot box in droves.
Adios, Marco!”
Yet these people make up only about 35% of the GOP primary electorate, and Trump wins only half these people or less, while Rubio wins 15-20% of them. And Trump wins a third of the “amnesty” supporters, more than Rubio.
So this notion about the decisive power of immigration proves to be completely facile and only very marginally supported by any facts.
What will “learning the lesson” look like?
From Ann Coulter’s just-posted weekly column:
“How many more GOP stars will die for mass immigration?”
“Stop proposing/supporting comprehensive immigration reform bills.”
So simplistic. The ilk that is Drumpf is not simply conjured by the angst at some illegal immigration. It is a piece of his coalition to be sure, but to assume that an issue which ranks 5th or 6th place in polling exit polls was what killed Rubio is far off the mark. Rubio still had high favorable ratings from all the polls.
What hurt Rubio was that he was trying to run the unity ticket. Anyone that watched his speeches or his interviews could see this. Rubio never said we will lock out a certain groups of voters or anything. He continually spoke of conservative outreach and how he wished to unify the party.
That doesn’t sit well with any faction in the party. The various factions are constantly fighting for control of the Republican Party. Ted Cruz stuck to the evangelicals and the libertarians in the party and has done well. Kasich stuck to the moderates and is still in the race (even though he should have dropped out by now). Drumpf got the Buchananites, Alt Right, and center leftist independents and Democrats and he is winning.
Rubio tried to do too much (appeal to all groups) in comparison to his opponents. Oddly enough though his approach was the proper conservative appeal of winning over individuals to conservatism but that didn’t sit well with the preaching to the choir factions of the GOP and he lost.
But politics is a long run game. Its not over.
Saying with conviction and putting into practice The Five Magic Words:
“Today, America Needs Fewer Immigrants.”
What’s so hard about that?
One generic lesson learned is that whether it is exit polls R vs. D generic polls or true predictive power for elections polling appears to be getting worse both here and abroad.
A lot of positive things have been written about Marco Rubio here and elsewhere for him to have such a poor showing and all these exit polls be correct.
Well the exit polls have gotten the final outcome of the vote correct in all these states, so you can’t really claim they have no validity.
The problem for Rubio with the Gang of 8 was not just the substance of the bill. Even if immigration is not your biggest concern, it signaled that he might be too naive and too easily manipulated to be an effective President. Anyone who has observed Senator Schumer at work knows that, however much we disagree with him, he is a very shrewd and strategic thinker with an excellent staff, and you’ve got to bring your A game to the table if you are going to engage in negotiations or cooperation with him or you are going to be taken to the cleaners, as Rubio clearly was.
The most interesting thing to me about Donald Trump’s candidacy is that, although he put on the air of “Gee, I just suddenly thought I’d run for president to represent you poor slobs who aren’t being represented by the Republican establishment,” he actually had done a lot of market research before he ran. Being president has been an ambition for quite a while. In the Oprah interview in 1988, Oprah asked him if he was running for president, and he gave a well, maybe answer. He supported Perot. He got involved in the Romney campaign. All the while watching our candidates blow it, while he, with his mass marketing know-how was thinking about how to do it.
He finally decided to run himself, and he started by finding out what people actually wanted.
There’s a lesson there for Republicans in the future, and if they had a website like Ricochet, they would know before they began their campaigns what was really on people’s minds.
We need to do some work as a party–address our ridiculous primary system, take over the debates ourselves, and pick a candidate we can really get behind.
I read an article years ago written by a Brit who said we run things differently here. Candidates run on their own here. In Britain and elsewhere, the party runs the candidate. They are behind him or her all the way.
First we do the platform, then we pick our candidate.
To be fair it’s not just immigration. It’s also many environmental regulations and many other government regulations that the overwhelming Republican Party-controlled Congress seemed unwilling or uninterested in trying to stop. We voted for you guys to do more than to stand thwart history and be unwilling to confront a president and the EPA due to fear, political correctness, campaign donations, etc.
As I said before, it was the biggest mistake since George H. W. Bush broke his “read my lips” no tax pledge. You can never fully trust that person again.
And Schumer is smart enough that it would not surprise me if he saw it as a win-win for him at the time. If the bill passed it was a win for him, and, for the reason you mention, if it didn’t (and, for that matter, even if it did), it would create a huge problem for a young, vibrant and bright rising star in the GOP.
I prefer something along the lines of “America Needs Only Immigrants Who Come Here Legally, Who Love It Here And Who Have Something To Contribute.”
That may be too many words.
But such immigrants do exist. And many of them, and their descendants, are already here. And America is the better for it.
Concur in all.