Marco Rubio hitting timely stride ahead of Iowa vote
AMES: If the Republican establishment can indeed strike back, as several 2016 presidential campaigns are hoping, this might be Marco Rubio’s moment. Florida’s freshman senator is making his mark just before the Iowa caucuses, the crucial first contest in the party nomination races.
At rallies and coffee shops across the state, he presents himself as the rational, policyfocused conservative in the campaign, countering the heated rhetoric of frontrunner Donald Trump and the Tea Party ideology of core conservative Ted Cruz. He is attracting interest from young voters who share his optimism about America and appreciate his family story of a dynamic son of Cuban immigrants who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps.
And he his courting Iowa’s all-important evangelical voters, invoking God and religion now perhaps more than ever. “He draws from all corners of the party,” Rubio’s communications director Alex Conant said at a Saturday rally in Ames, one of several Rubio is holding up until caucus time today.
While he still trails billionaire Trump and fellow US senator Cruz in polls, a stronger-thanexpected bronze medal finish here would boost his claim as the pre-eminent mainstream Republican in the race going into the votes in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
“Traditionally there are three tickets out of Iowa, and we’d be thrilled with a strong third place,” said Conant, downplaying expectations even as Rubio narrows the gap on Cruz. So why isn’t Rubio eyeing Iowa’s top two spots? “We’re running against the greatest showman on Earth, and the greatest ground game that’s ever been assembled in Iowa,” Conant observed about Trump and Cruz.
“If we can finish ahead of the other traditional Republican candidates going into New Hampshire, I think that’s a strong position for us.” Rubio is well ahead of Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and son and brother of two presidents, and governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and John Kasich of Ohio.
In New Hampshire, however, he trails Kasich and Bush, along with Trump and Cruz. In Iowa, though, Rubio has risen to 14.5 percent in the RealClearPolitics poll average, while second place Cruz has slipped to 24.5 percent support. Trump has also declined, but still leads at 30.8.
While Cruz recently had been launching a comprehensive assault against Trump, he now trains his fire on Rubio, a sign the Texan is concerned about Rubio’s Iowa rise. On the campaign trail now, Cruz regularly invokes Rubio’s name, often to slam his positions on immigration.
On the‘same wavelength’
Rubio is doing something regularly in Iowa as well-talking a lot about God. Like his rivals, Rubio has launched a full court press to woo evangelicals, the religious conservatives so vital in first-to-vote Iowa. “Our rights don’t come from our government, our rights don’t come from our laws,”he said in Ames.“Our rights come from our Creator.”
The 44-year-old Rubio’s secret weapon might well be young voters, who are expressing dissatisfaction with Trump’s coarse, confrontational rhetoric and are turning to Rubio as an optimistic 21st century leader. “Rubio and I are on the same wavelength on a lot of important issues,” said Nathan Haila, 36, a product manager for a manufacturing company.
He said he appreciates some aspects of Trump’s message,“but at the end of the day, policy matters.” Trump’s relentless combativeness, insults and simplifications of complex policy issues can be counterproductive, Haila said. “It’s hard to hear sometimes through the rhetoric what somebody’s actually going to do.”— AFP