Mark Leibovich has written a fabulous study of the crossroads we stand upon. Florida is once again the epicenter of American politics, and Marco Rubio is the litmus test.
From an upcoming New York Times magazine:
"If there is a face for the future of the Republican Party, it is Marco Rubio," Huckabee told me. "He is our Barack Obama but with substance."
Rubio walked into the country club a few minutes later. He moves in purposeful bursts, like the former college football player he is. With a boyish mop of brown hair and a big grin, he resembles a barrel-chested version of George Stephanopoulos. He was greeted by Raul Fernandez, a supporter who wore a full ensemble of "Rubio for Senate" clothing, and by Dave Miner, a lawyer and education advocate, who assured Rubio that "probably about 100 percent of the people here support you."
"What is this, one of those Saddam Hussein kind of deals?" Rubio said, laughing.
I will get to vote, and it looks like Kendrick Meek will be my man. The real test for our country may come in the Republican section, however, before the final battle even begins. The article goes deep into the steeping mess that is Tea Party hysteria, but I would like to focus more on the Rubio phenomenon in this diary.
Even when standing in one place, Rubio is a quivering bundle, his right leg shaking behind the lectern. He jackhammers his message about America’s exceptional status in the world. "This is the only society in history where your future is not determined by where you were born," he said. "I believe that the United States of America is the greatest society in the history of humanity." America is unique for its belief in limited government, he says, not because it is anointed. "Does God love us more than Belgium?" he asked. "No."
God doesn't love America best? I bet he could get at least a million tea baggers to disagree.
"The biggest danger facing America today are politicians who will say or do anything to get elected, who treat elections like an athletic contest."
I think this is rather amusing, coming from the supposed next superstar of Republican politics. If he welcomes Sarah Palin's endorsement he will eat those words raw.
"I’m not a fan of personality-based politics," Rubio said. "Very third worldish." People who pin their trust and faith in a person are bound to be disappointed, he said. "I’m just a messenger for a set of ideas."
This one makes me laugh. Especially when the article points out that some of his biggest idea merchants are the "English Only" crowd. How does a proud Cuban sell that one to his family?
After his speech, which drew a standing ovation, Rubio and I took over a table in the country-club bar. Rubio’s leg started immediately quivering under the table. He asked a waitress for coffee. "Decaf?" she asked.
"That’s like ordering O’Doul’s," Rubio said. "What’s the use?"
Okay, that I can applaud. I love me some strong coffee and witty one-liners. If he survives the inevitable oppostition research, this guy will be very entertaining.
Bob Smith is especially critical of Rubio, mentioning that Rubio spent public money getting his office renovated and also supported a publicly financed project that included the installation of artificial turf on a field where he happened to play flag football. Clearly Rubio wants no part of him — he backed out of a scheduled forum in October in which he would have shared a stage with Smith.
We have yet to see the skeletons in Marco Rubio's closet. They are surely known and loaded for the right moment. When do you think they will come out? Will Charlie Crist use them, or will they be held for the final contest?
"You have a duty to the people." Crist points out that stimulus funds allowed 20,000 teachers in Florida to keep their jobs. "I could have made a political statement and said, ‘Well, too bad for you, teachers, I’m not going to take that money.’ Well come on, I don’t know what kind of a cold heart is able to do that. But I don’t have a cold heart in my chest."
Charlie Crist would have won this race in a landslide without the Tea Pary mania. He is a very good politician, and a very good man. He saved many jobs last year and it is crazy to think how strong the cold hearts have become since then.
Since then, our fair state has once again become very important to the fate of the nation. I would like to end with a big bunch of Mark Leibovich's fantastic summary of the situation. We shall see how it all shakes out in the end.
Florida became "a hill to die on for conservatives," declared the blogger and right-wing activist Erick Erickson, of RedState.com. "This primary has become a lot more than just a Senate race in some ways," Erickson told me. "There is a lot riding on Marco Rubio."
Rubio, a self-styled "movement conservative" whose parents were exiled from Castro’s Cuba, is a great hope to a party that has suffered an exodus of Hispanic voters in recent elections. He made the cover of National Review, won the endorsement of the Club for Growth, a conservative imprimatur and A.T.M., and has drawn big love from George Will, Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh, the Palm Beach resident. Sarah Palin has not spoken publicly about the race, but Rubio supporters who met her during book stops in Florida say she spoke glowingly of Rubio, and it would surprise no one if she endorsed him.
If Rubio defeats Crist on Aug. 24, conservatives will see the victory as a signal that Republicans should not compromise to try to appeal to moderates. "There was all this talk that conservatives couldn’t win in certain states, like Pennsylvania or Florida," Jim DeMint, the South Carolina senator, told me. "We had to go out and find middle-of-the-road Republicans who could bridge the gap between Republicans and independents. So when someone like Rubio came along, who is not milquetoast, not lukewarm, who very clearly is a conservative, an American, and independents flock to him, it sends a message."
Democrats have welcomed these primary challenges as inevitably divisive.
"The Tea Party movement is savaging the G.O.P.," said Tim Kaine, the governor of Virginia and the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, in a speech in early December.
Beyond Florida’s borders, the Crist-Rubio battle involves the fate of the Republican "big tent," once championed by Ronald Reagan to promote an inclusive party open to a range of viewpoints. Crist is a "big-tent" guy. "If the party narrows the focus too much," he told me, "there’s great risk in terms of not being successful in elections."
"This is an old-time crowd of loyal Republicans," said one old-time Republican I met, Bill Spain, who says he has been involved in Escambia County politics "since the air was clean and sex was dirty" (about 45 years). He likes Crist because he is a gentleman and not one of those "in-your-face fundamentalists, like what you see on cable TV today.... Charlie is a class act and a pro and a solid Republican," Spain said. "And he is not one of these combative bomb-thrower types that seem to be taking over so much of what are in politics today, including here. This is no time for bomb-throwers and fundamentalists."