The Rubio shuffle
UPDATE: Apparently, now Rubio doesn’t believe in mankind’s hand in global warming anymore, either, and he’s reversed his position on cap and trade. Up next — Marco sends RedStaters over the moon by denying evolution, reveals new career as a NASCAR driver, and travels to Alaska to personally execute polar bears with his very own gun …
I’ve often wondered what would happen with Marco Rubio’s RedState tea party rhetoric met Florida’s fiscal reality. Well … probably something like this:
Adam Smith notest that we’ve struggled lately to get a clear answer from Marco Rubio on whether as governor he would have accepted money from the federal stimulus package about which he is so critical. Keith Cate on Tampa Bay’s NBC affiliate got a clearer answer:
“Ultimately,” Rubio said. “I would have accepted those portions of the money that would not have put Florida in a worse position off in the future than it is right now.”
How Crist like.
Indeed. And the fine folks at Naked Politics also remind us that Rubio’s pal, David Rivera, the Florida House appropriations chair, wrote the stimulus bucks-laden budget for Flawrida this year, packed with lots of meaty pork. Quick! Next ask Marco whether he’d accept federal money for the bullet train! Watch Rubio bob and weave, below. The piece includes a few choice items from Rubio’s days as House speaker, including his support for pork-laden projects like $60 billion for a brand new stadium for the Marlins, and millions to lay astroturf on a ball field he frequented as a kid. What is it with “conservatives” and astroturf …?
The Hotline picks up on the flip-floppery:
Ex-FL House Speaker Marco Rubio (R) seems to have changed his position on stimulus funding, now saying he would have accepted federal money headed to his state.
But that’s not what he said earlier this year. In an interview with the Herald/Times in Aug., Rubio suggested — but did not outright say — that he would not have taken stimulus money offered by the federal government.
“I would have spent the money we have. You balance the budget,” Rubio says when asked what he would have done with the money had he been governor. “I would have only spent the money I have.”
Meanwhile, the gloves appear to be coming off on the pro-Crist side. A Youtube video called “the Real Rubio,” posted by an anonymous Rubio foe, attempts to tag Rubio as an Obama-friendly, suspiciously Hispanic … hypocrite:
The Youtube channel this video is running on was just put up November 10th. There’s also a lightly updated website, though it doesn’t appear on the face of it, that the two are related. There’s no evidence that the Crist campaign had anything to do with either one, directly, but the Youtube video’s title suggests a decidedly Cristian view, or at least, a shared tagline:
“It is incredible that Marco Rubio has based his entire campaign on attacking Charlie Crist for doing exactly what, he now admits, he would have done himself,” said Andrea Saul, Crist’s spokesperson, in a statement. “Time and again, voters in Florida will begin to see the real Marco Rubio.”
“The real Marco Rubio” is a phrase Crist’s campaign has embraced when discussing their opponent. Expect to hear it much more in advance of this summer’s primary.
Meanwhile, Rubio has attempted a quick recovery, turning to the tried and true conservative response to all things: tax cuts …
Rubio’s reply, sent to Hotline OnCall in an email:
“Charlie Crist campaigned with President Obama in support of the $787 billion stimulus spending bill and pressured Florida’s congressional delegation to vote for it. And if he had been in the U.S. Senate, he would have voted for it. Unlike Charlie Crist, I do not believe we can deficit spend our way into prosperity. I would have stood up to the Obama-Crist stimulus package and offered a clear alternative in the form of permanent tax cuts.”
“Advocating for the stimulus plan and accepting those dollars are not the same. The stimulus was a disaster and I would have fought it in every way possible. But once President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Crist mandated their mountain of debt, I have said I would have handled the stimulus money the same way real conservative governors like Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin and Haley Barbour have.”
Sure, throw the secessionist, Jindal, Palin and Barbour under the bus. All’s fair in trying to get elected.
Meanwhile, Rubio’s fans at NRO rally to his defense. No word yet on this seeming flip-flop will reduce RedState’s man crush.
Adam Smith comes to Rubio’s defense, somewhat, but what’s important here are not the particulars, but rather the narrative. If the idea catches on that Rubio is a phony, any advantage he has won from Crist’s flippery regarding President Obama and the stimulus would be moot. But I have to say, stoking xenophobic attitudes regarding Rubio’s first language is pretty lowbrow.
UPDATE 2: Is the conservatives’ Rubio man crush subsiding?
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