Rubio may be spoiler in White House bid
In 2010, he crushed Charlie Crist. In 2016, could he unseat Bush?
When Marco Rubio visited West Palm Beach six years ago this week for a new phenomenon called a tea part y rally, political experts saw him as a promising figure whose ambitions were blocked by one of Florida’s most popular Republicans.
A lot has changed since then, but much of the conventional wisdom surrounding Rubio is similar as he is expected to launch a 2016 presidential campaign on Monday in Miami.
As in 2009, when Rubio embarked on a Senate campaign while then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist seemed to have a mortal lock on the GOP nom-
ination, a popular Florida Republican appears to be standing in Rubio’s way — former Gov. Jeb Bush, the early front runner for the GOP presidential nomination.
Rubio, of course, overcame Crist’s huge 2009 advantage to win the 2010 Republican nomination and Florida’s Senate seat and chase Crist from the GOP in the process. Rubio used his dynamic speaking skills to present an optimistic conservative message and highlight his compelling biography as the son of working-class Cuban immigrants.
He also showed an abilit y to recognize and capitalize on the political opportunities of the time.
The 2010 elections were defifined by a national tea party wave, and the conservative Rubio positioned himself as one of the movement’s early stars. He spoke in West Palm Beach at the inaugural rally of the South Florida Tea Party on April 15, 2009, as more than 800 similar tax-day rallies were taking place across the United States. Rubio’s appearance drew a sharp distinction between himself and the moderate Crist, whose support for President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus put him at odds with conservatives.
“Marco has a tremendous fluency with the conservative movement that he demonstrated time and again in 2009 when he was the guy with no chance, no hope, no nothing,” said Tallahassee-based Republican strategist Rick Wilson, who is not affiliated with any 2016 presidential candidate.
With so many potential candidates in the 2016 GOP fifield, Wilson said, “the trick for a guy like Marco is to catch the moment that is offffffffffffered by a breakthrough in a debate or in an event in an early state ... The question is, are you the kind of candidate who has the mental agility, the political acuity and the charisma to be able to capture a moment?”
Tallahassee Republican lob- campaign for governor. “I think Jeb would be the most electable in a general election ... I have nothing bad to say about Marco Rubio. I think the world of him. I think he’d be a great president, too.”
Miami-based Republican strategist and commentator Ana Navarro, friends with both Bush and Rubio, is supporting Bush but says it was “painful” to choose between the two.
“Marco is the best orator in politics today. He’s become the clearest foreign policy voice of the new generation of Republicans. But I feel an unbreachable loyalty toward Jeb. He’s been a long-time friend and inflfluence in my life. I don’t think there is anybody in the Republican or Democrat fifield as battle-tested and prepared to lead this country as Jeb,” Navarro said.
Rubio has said repeatedly that if he and Bush end up in the presidential race, he would not be running directly against his friend.
Indeed, the large field of declared and potential GOP candidates includes several who poll better than Rubio nationally and in key nom- inating battlegrounds. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker can be seen as a more direct rival to Rubio as both try to build a coalition of grass-roots conservatives and part y establishment supporters to contend with Bush. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul have overtaken Rubio among tea party voters.
Rubio’s stock has fallen with much of the GOP base since he supported a 2013 immigration reform bill that included a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the country illegally.
An aggregation of recent national GOP polls by RealClearPolitics.com shows Rubio languishing in seventh place with single-digit support. He trails not only Bush, Walker, Cruz and Paul but t wo other Floridians — retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson of West Palm Beach and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee of Santa Rosa Beach.
While the Republican fifield is crowded, a direct Bush-Rubio showdown will be unavoidable if both are still in the race when Florida holds its March 15, 2016, primary. It’s not yet clear how many other states will hold primaries and caucuses ahead of Florida, but the Sunshine State could be pivotal as it will award its large haul of delegates on a winner-take-all basis.
The idea of Bush and Rubio competing head to head was unthinkable to many Florida Republicans until recently.
“It would divide the party. I don’t think either of them wants to do that. So I think in the fifinal analysis it’ll be one or the other,” Florida Republican National Committeeman Peter Feaman of Boynton Beach said last year.
“It would appear that I might be wrong,” Feaman said last week. “The positive side is, it puts Florida once again on the political map in a presidential cycle. And it shows how talented Florida is in terms of Republican officeholders. That’s the plus side. The down side is that they both can’t win.”