I used to be scared of this dude, and still am a little nervous because of his youth thing and he used to be smooth. However, two things are making me relax a little. First, I hadn’t seen him under pressure, I guess because he’d never really been under pressure. Second, his politics are actually, rather extreme. And what’s surprising “strategically” is that he’s not even obfuscating. He’s straight saying it—and he’s getting a pass so far from the media.
He has this reputation as a reasonable cheerful moderate because he attacks Obama’s “divisiveness” and talks about “bringing American’s together” and because he’s soft on immigration. But
- He’s a bigger war monger than Jeb! (think about that for a second—a bigger war monger than a Bush!!!!).
- He has the most extreme women’s reproductive rights position I’ve ever seen by a mainstream candidate.
- He’s for the biggest tax cuts of any of them running.
- He’s a huge anti-muslim bigot.
- He’s all in on surveillance.
- He wants to roll back gay rights.
This doesn’t sound like the platform of tomorrow and surely the Sanders or Clinton campaigns would remind the general electorate about that? Rubio is more “moderate” than Cruz in temperament and tactics sure. But on policy, this dude is to the right of Cruz. Thing about Rubio, is that I’m now beginning to doubt that he’s even as smooth as Romney. I don’t think he has the skill to pull of the etch-a-sketch.