In the summer of 2012, it was conventional wisdom inside the Beltway that Mitt Romney would not select Marco Rubio as his running mate for the simple reason that Marco Rubio is a crook. To be less concise:
Rubio charged more than $100,000 to state GOP credit cards, had racked up nearly $1 million in personal debt, and nearly had his home foreclosed on. No doubt that Rubio has plenty of assets (young, Latino, from Florida). But he also carries a lot of risk for the usually risk-averse Romney.
Less than a year later, is that all forgotten? Josh Marshall seems to have let it slip his mind. While I see Mr. Marshall’s point about Rubio fulfilling a party deficit in much the same way as Wesley Clark did for the Democrats in 2003-4, the real limitation on Rubio is still that he is a crook. It isn’t necessarily an insurmountable problem, but over time character will out. If you are the kind of person who will steal from your own political party, you’re probably not going to survive scrutiny. This is a man who was fined by the Federal Election Commission last year because he collected over $200,000 in illegal political contributions during his campaign for Senate. That isn’t ancient history, is it?
IOKIYAR
Exactly right. I’ll never forget that the Repugnant Ones who LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the military and service to the country are the same people whe didn’t give a damn that Bush was a deserter and Kerry came home with a Silver Star, Bronze Stare, and 3 Purple Hearts.
Repugnant Ones have no core values af any kind. If they think they can lie Rubio into office, they’ll line up to support him.
I was waiting for someone to bring this up. Seems rather obvious. Probably wouldn’t matter to primary voters. But in the general he would be toast.
I think he’d hurt in the primaries… he’s not exactly white.
No, and I’ll keep reminding you if you forget.
Sing it loud, sing it proud, Rubio’s a crook.
He can’t be trusted with the Gops’ card.
He can’t be trusted with the nations.
Period.
The benefit of being a token in the GOP I guess. Remember Alan Keyes? Old dude was crazy as hell, yet GOP still put him up against people like Obama
Maybe the best Rubio can hope for is a tokenistic VP slot… I just don’t see GOP primary voters pulling the lever for the off-white guy (cubans are a rung below irish and a rung above non-black puerto ricans in the us racial hierarchy)
Yes. Yes, it isancient history, or at least it will be by 2016. Rubio’s foibles compare to those of the Keating Five – one of the largest financial scandals in our political history. Forget about 2008 – when McCain ran in 2000, barely a decade later, it was barely worth a mention, and then only as a platform to tout the Important Lessons learned by such a pillar of moral reckles – er, rectitude.
Of course, that’s a loaded comparison, because McCain had the Beltway media wrapped around his little finger and they wouldn’t write anything skeptical, let alone critical, about him. So Rubio’s a marked man unless our national political elites defer to him for the next three years in much the same way that they’re, uh, already doing.
Ancient history. The media elites’ need to convince themselves that we have two rational major parties, and that our current problems would be solved if only we elected leaders with a track record of bipartisan success (like Rubio), far outweigh any impulse to mention troublesome facts or history.
“The media elites’ need to convince themselves that we have two rational major parties”
Hell, yes. Can’t have a horse race, otherwise.
And the GOP brings the whores to the race.
Well Josh does get the vapors from time to time…
Look, Rubio is being played very cynically by the leadership here. Nobody cares much about his past because he really doesn’t have much of a future aside from putting a brown face on the Republican party, which, for the time being gets them some favorable press. They are convinced they have an optics problem, not a policy problem, and this helps them in the short term. They’re already running away from from his immigration ideas, and I have no doubt the establishment candidate will come after him hard on this in the primaries (with the establishment press giving a helping hand)if he actually insists on running.
I tend to agree with the comments here that people forget past scandals. And this isn’t new. In the 1970s it was conventional wisdom that Ted Kennedy couldn’t run for President because of Chappaquidick, but in 1980 he did run because of frustration with Carter – and if Carter hadn’t had the incumbent’s advantage Kennedy would have won. The 1969 scandal was basically a non-issue in that campaign.
OTOH, regarding comments that Rubio is too dark-skinned to win a GOP primary – sorry, not buying. Oh, to be sure, there will be a ton of talk about that, much coming from the right. They didn’t like McCain because of his allegedly moderate history, with many rightwing leaders (Dobson, Limbaugh, etc) vowing not to vote at all of he won the primary. But come the election they were in lockstep with McCain. Ditto with the Morman, proto-Obamacare enacting, former pro-choice Romney.
Yeah, yeah, those guys are white males. I get that. But although racism is a huge driver for the wingnut base, it’s not the primary driver. The primary driver is “not one of us”. The need for their to be an “us” and a “them” – racism is just a very obvious example of that. Oh they’ll feel queasy voting for Rubio, but if the establishment gets behind him as they did for McCain and Romney he’ll win the primary again because the GOP primaries are winner-takes-all and the rest of the GOP field will split the vote amongst 7 or 8 crazy candidates. Once nominated the base will once again line up behind what their authorities tell them to do, as they always do, once the Democrat is sufficiently demonized.
Finally, keep in mind that the common bigot cliche is “there are some good ones, I’m the first to say that”. Bigots love to bring up examples of one or two blacks or latinos who they support in the vain attempt to somehow prove they are being fair. There would be a perverse pride in voting for one of the few “good” Latinos to prove their bona-fides.
And reacting to one other point – that Rubio won’t be chosen because he’s not a strong administrator or not capable in other ways. Yes, that sounds logical. But we are talking about the party that totally got behind George W Bush. And who worships Ronald Reagan. The GOP seems to prefer their leaders to be puppets with shadowy puppet-masters pulling the strings.
I’m not sure why, but maybe for people who seek comfort in giving up their freedom to authorities (as long as it’s the RIGHT authorities) perhaps it makes them feel better to imagine that the real shots are being called by people far more competent and wise than they can imagine. I did remember some GWB supporters actually express confidence in GWB because they knew the decisions were actually going to be made by his handlers. OTOH, I’m not sure that’s really what’s going on in their brains because I’ve also heard them at other times praise GWB like he was some incredible genius.
However, the key point is that competence or a track record of accomplishment are not selling points to the GOP rank and file, and not necessary for a successful primary campaign.