Tag: Marco Rubio

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Immigration Politics The Opinionsphere

Why Marco Rubio Is the Future of the Republican Party

[digg-reddit-me]Rubio’s comments on the Arizona law:

While I don’t believe Arizona’s policy was based on anything other than trying to get a handle on our broken borders, I think aspects of the law, especially that dealing with ‘reasonable suspicion,’ are going to put our law enforcement officers in an incredibly difficult position.  It could also unreasonably single out people who are here legally, including many American citizens.  Throughout American history and throughout this administration we have seen that when government is given an inch it takes a mile.

Other right wingers and Republicans have stood against the law — as Andrew Sullivan ably chronicles — including Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, and Tom Ridge. But none manages to finesse the issue quite so well as Rubio — who has the added advantage of being the most prominent Latino Republican in the nation. When the Republican Party has no choice but to try to woo the Hispanic vote as the demographics of the nation shift — while at the same time not alienating the overwhelmingly white populist right wing, Marco Rubio will be the answer. He will serve the same function to the party in the future as Michael Steele does now — except Rubio likely won’t be the screw-up Steele has been.

Notice how Rubio couches his opposition in populist right-wing grounds — that it would undermine the liberties of American citizens, that it puts police officers in a difficult position, that it represents encroaching government power.

It’s very well-done — and compared to the other statements by Republicans against the law — it’s masterful. This ability to position himself so well — added to his life story of how his parents escaped Communist Cuba to come to the land of opportunity — makes him a top-tier Republican presidential or vice-presidential candidate in the near-future. The fact that he’s Latino guarantees him a spot on a national ticket by 2020. I’d bet a presidential run in 2016 leads to him getting the Republican nomination for Vice President and/or lays the groundwork for his successful effort to in 2020 to get the Republican presidential nomination.

[Adapted from an image by DavidAll06 licensed under Creative Commons.]

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Politics The Opinionsphere

Charlie Crist, Democrat?

Jonathan Chait suggests a strategy to get popular Florida Governor Charlie Crist what he wants (a Senate Seat) as well as the Democratic Party what it wants (another Senate seat):

As I see it, he has two options. First, he can bow out of the primary, campaign energetically for Rubio in November, and hope the party moves to the center far enough for him to run again at some future date. Second, he can make the case that the party has gotten too extreme for him — a legitimate case, as Crist is genuinely moderate on most of the key issues — and run for Senate as an independent or as a Democrat. Neither option is particularly easy, though the second seems easier than the first.

And now it looks like Crist just might be thinking along the same lines. Apparently he plans to join President Obama for his political appearance this week in Tampa.

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Criticism Foreign Policy Health care History Politics The Opinionsphere

Health Care Graphs, Cold War Deer, Evaluating Hillary, An Armey of Tea Baggers, and Rubio

Kaiser Permanente. Ezra Klein interviewed Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson this week – and got two fascinating posts out of it so far (with the second part of the interview still to come.) The most interesting post for me was the one that included a number of graphs, including this one.  Ezra bills these charts as “An insurance industry CEO explains why American health care costs so much” – which comes down to this fact: in other countries, government set medical fees.

The Cold War Lives On. Cecilie Rohwedder of the Wall Street Journal tells the fascinating story of how several herds of deer still seem to be stuck in the Cold War.

Evaluating Hillary. Joe Klein has a balanced and insightful evaluation of Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. It is a bit early – as he acknowledges. But while the piece is worthwhile, he gives too little credit for the positive progress made by Hillary and the Obama administration in checking the deterioration of U.S. interests around the world, especially with regards to public diplomacy.

Armey of Tea Baggers. Michael Sokolove for the New York Times Magazine has a nice profile of Dick Armey, in the news of late for his Freedom Works organization and the tea parties they’ve been organizing. The difference between Armey the public speaker and Armey the man comes out in the story, as Armey the man seems like a bit of an ass, but a reasonable fellow; while Armey the public speaker is a demagogue, for example stating:

Nearly every important office in Washington, D.C., today is occupied by someone with an aggressive dislike for our heritage, our freedom, our history and our Constitution.

The trick of the organizing Armey is attempting is that he extols the virtues of the individual while trying to unite these individuals into a collective “we” who will fight to protect “our heritage, our freedom, our history.” He is speaking the language of a member of a beleaguered minority – while claiming majority support. Political pressure in the right way should relatively easily disturb the balance he is now able to so effortlessly achieve.

Marco Rubio. NPR profiles the man who – if I were betting – is the future of the Republican Party, after it escapes the Sarah Palin death spiral: Marco Rubio. (Listen to the audio of the story if you can.) He’s very conservative – and makes many political mistakes in positioning himself against common sense, which by all rights should come back to haunt him when he is chosen as a Vice Presidential nominee – for example, coming out against the fact that government spending can stimulate the economy. This betrays a basic disregard for macroeconomics, at least when put as unsubtly as Rubio does. But he keeps well within the mainstream of Republican positions on these issues, so as unhinged as those positions may be, he will be insulated from charges of kooky-ness.

But he’s Hispanic; his wife is a former cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins; he’s a darling of the far right, but seems smart enough to tack to the center in a general election campaign – and the fact that he’s already accepted by the far right means he will be able to get away with it; he speaks convincingly of America as a nation of “go-getters;” he seems to have a natural charisma and charm, and is at ease with those who disagree with him; and finally, he’s ambitious as hell and has enough self-regard to believe he can beat the extremely popular Governor Charlie Crist for his Senate seat.