I’m basically inclined to give Nate Cohn credit for examining the hype around Marco Rubio, but I still feel like he didn’t go far enough in his quest to burst these bubbles. Let me give a couple of examples.
Cohn comes out of the box by noting that Rubio has been repeatedly called the “best communicator” in the Republican Party. Why, then, does gonorrhea basically poll better than Rubio among likely Republican primary voters? For, Cohn, the explanation is that Rubio is positioned all wrong on the issues.
Could be.
But maybe he actually isn’t a good communicator or a “polished” politician. Maybe people are just saying that he is because they heard someone else say it. When he had a chance to respond to the State of the Union speech, he pulled a Bobby Jindal. Does anyone remember his speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention the way that they remembered the speech Barack Obama gave at the 2004 Democratic National Convention? Does anyone remember any speech or public appearance that Rubio has ever made in a positive light?
Here’s another example.
Cohn notes that Rubio’s support with the Republican base collapsed when he became associated with the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill and the support has never come back. This is the central fact about both Marco Rubio and the Republican base. If Ben Carson starts pushing reparations for slavery, his support will also collapse and never come back.
Why, then, do we need to look for other reasons for Rubio’s lack of support? Why are we wondering whether Jeb is sucking up all Rubio’s campaign cash when we know that the problem is that the Republican base only supports minority candidates who bash minorities, not ones who try to get “amnesty” for millions of “illegal aliens”?
All we need to do is compare Rubio to another Cuban-American senator to see the problem here. Sen. Ted Cruz wanted to shut down the government to force the president to deport every possible Latino. This is how a Republican minority is supposed to act. Seems to me like Cruz is the better communicator.
Who will raise more money and get more delegates?
I don’t enjoy harping on this stuff, but you can’t do analysis of American politics if you don’t first understand the Republican Party as xenophobic and obsessed with racial purity.
