What exactly is Marco Rubio doing with his time? The Florida senator isn't showing up to vote in the Senate, which had been attributed to the time he was spending on the campaign trail. But it turns out, Republicans are worried Rubio isn’t putting in enough time or effort on the campaign trail, either.
At his town halls, Rubio generally answers no more than a handful of questions. Leaders of grass-roots organizations grumble that it is difficult to entice him to speak at their events. And Rubio has limited interaction with the news media who cover him.
“Is his campaign a little more superficial than that of other people in his bracket in New Hampshire? I think the answer is yes,” said former New Hampshire Republican Party chairman Fergus Cullen, who is neutral in the race.
A top party official from a critical swing state who spoke on the condition of anonymity on a topic of increasing sensitivity in GOP circles said that other contenders are becoming familiar faces to voters there. “The big question is, where is Marco Rubio? People have tried to get him to attend stuff, and he just hasn’t,” the state party leader said.
Part of this is that when Rubio is out campaigning in the early states, he’s not exactly hustling:
Rubio’s campaign announced Friday, for instance, that he will be spending three days in New Hampshire between now and Christmas, during which he will hold four town halls and a pancake breakfast.
Four town halls and a pancake breakfast in three days? A candidate who’s really working for it should be able to get in nearly twice that many events in that span of time, especially since he’s not sticking around to answer a lot of questions. New Hampshire is not that big a state—it’s not like he’d have to get on a plane to get from event to event. In Iowa, meanwhile, Republicans complain that Rubio is staying close to his suburban Des Moines campaign office.
Maybe Rubio can win this primary by wooing billionaires and doing a lot of media interviews while not spending much time face to face with regular voters. But that doesn't really seem to be working for him so far.