The Miami Herald caught up with Marco Rubio on the stump in the Panhandle. Appropriately, in what is the most conservative part of the state, Rubio is falling all over himself to prove he's a wingnut.
Rubio repeatedly hit the highlights of the conservative agenda in a two-day Panhandle tour last week that took him from a Pensacola diner that boasts ``no grits, no glory'' to a wood-paneled Best Western in DeFuniak Springs. Offshore oil drilling? Check. No amnesty for illegal immigrants? Check. Limited government, gun rights and term limits? Check, check, check.
Other things that won Rubio a warm reception on this trip--he's embraced flat-tax hoakum, opposes the climate change bill and has reversed his opposition to English-only legislation. But the real kicker--at a Republican women's club near DeFuniak Springs, he hedged on whether our president was born here.
"I don't know the answer to that," Rubio equivocated when asked at the GOP women's club whether the president's birth certificate is valid.
Although Charlie Crist is still leading him big in this area, Rubio seems to be getting a warm reception in this blood-red area.
"Listening to you makes me feel like there's hope,'' said retired teacher Anne McLemore after hearing Rubio at a Republican women's club in Miramar Beach. She added later, ``He was saying all the things I need to hear."
"He just makes us feel good,'' said Carolyn Pfeiffer, the 73-year-old treasurer of the women's club in Navarre. ``He makes us feel secure as Americans, with all these illegal aliens who want us to pay for their medicine. I have to pay for my own medicine."
Apparently Rubio must be taking a few pages from Mel Martinez' playbook. Martinez won the Republican primary in 2004 by airing disgusting ads saying Bill McCollum was bought and paid for by gays because he supported a hate-crimes bill. Those ads won him a ton of votes in the Panhandle.