Marco Rubio suffered withering attacks both during Saturday's GOP debate and afterward for his bumbling performance, but few of them included the fact that he's as much an extremist as anyone else on the stage.
He may not fully support Trump's Muslim ban, but he does advocate for rolling back same-sex marriage rights and forcing women to carry their pregnancy to term without exception for cases of rape or incest.
Yet somehow he continues to be tagged a "moderate" by the Beltway crowd. Mike Signorile is understandably mystified by it:
Can someone truly be a "moderate," after all, while calling for making abortion illegal without even an exception for rape and incest? Really? After the national uproar over comments by hard right GOP Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock in 2012, which sunk them both? Can someone truly be a "moderate" while promising to reverse the Supreme Court's decision on marriage equality by putting judges on the bench who will do so, literally threatening the marriages of thousands of couples and the civil rights of millions? Obergefell v. Hodges is built on 50 years of civil rights high court decisions, from Loving v. Virginia up to the Windsor decision that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. It should be considered settled law as much as Brown v. Board of Education or any other civil rights decisions. Reversing it would create chaos across the country. Anyone who disagrees with that -- and promises to put justices on the court specifically for that purpose -- is surely not a "moderate."
Rubio's no moderate, but then again nor is anyone in the Republican field who has a chance of winning. Even someone like Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who tends to come across as relatively reasonable in comparison to Trump and Cruz, is preparing to sign a bill defunding Planned Parenthood in his home state—adding to his already egregious record on women’s health issues.
So why has the “moderate” label stuck to Rubio? The short answer is, establishment Republicans really have no good options, especially after Donald Trump dragged the whole party down a racist rabbit hole.
They must rally around someone and in so doing trick others, if not themselves, into believing that person is a "moderate." Marco Rubio will retain that moniker as long the establishment needs him too.