Rubio’s brand dented with conservatives, Hispanics?
Marco says: "It's my money!" ... only it's not.
I had lunch with a prominent member of South Florida’s Hispanic community not too long ago, who told me, to my surprise, that Marco Rubio has a Cuban problem. On Spanish language radio, apparently (and this person appears on it regularly,) he is often criticized for appearing to deliberately take stands harmful to fellow Latinos just to win over white conservatives, including opposing immigration reform (a priority for Hispanic elected officials), calling Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty grant a mistake, and coming out against counting illegal immigrants in the Census, a strange position that makes xenophobes happy, but which if implemented, would cost Florida billions of dollars.
Indeed, being a black or brown conservative often seems to require making repeated and increasingly vigorous demonstrations of disdain for one’s own ethnic group. Blacks who vehemently oppose affirmative action and Latinos who oppose immigration reform are particularly prized by the right. Clarence Thomas is beloved by white right wingers as much because he is hostile to what they see as the “race hustling” of traditional black leaders as for his Supreme Court rulings (which are just like Tony Scalia’s anyway.) Rubio, by taking hard-right stands on things like immigration, is positioning himself roughly where Tom Tancredo is on issues, which is good for his push-button poll numbers, but which has also hurt him, according to those same (not very sound, but highly media-shiny) polls, with Hispanics, who right now prefer either Charlie Crist or Kendrick Meek, to one of their own. So could Rubio be more properly characterized as the Hispanic Clarence Thomas, rather than the Hispanic Barack Obama? (Thomas’ wife is now a tea partier, so the similarities are growing.)
A piece in the National Journal’s Burn After Reading blog suggests his troubles might be real: Read more
Today’s Herald column: Rubio can’t have it both ways
Marco Rubio: talking right wing, hiding from the consequences?
The upshot of my column today: Senate candidate Marco Rubio has up to now, gotten away with pandering to the hard right in his rhetoric, without having to confront the real-life consequences of the conservative ideology…
And then, along came Jim Bunning. Read more
Limbaugh on the uninsured: ‘let them eat applesauce!’
In case you’ve gotten confused on where conservatives stand on healthcare, Rush is here to clarify things for you, and his little friends, too. Responding to Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter’s sad story during the healthcare summit about a constituent who was forced to use her deceased sister’s dentures because she didn’t have insurance with which to get her own, here’s what the wingers had to say:
RUSH LIMBAUGH:
You know I’m getting so many people — this Louise Slaughter comment on the dentures? I’m getting so many people — this is big. I mean, that gets a one-time mention for a laugh, but there are people out there that think this is huge because it’s so stupid. I mean, for example, well, what’s wrong with using a dead person’s teeth? Aren’t the Democrats big into recycling? Save the planet? And so what? So if you don’t have any teeth, so what? What’s applesauce for? Isn’t that why they make applesauce? (full transcript here.)
Limbaugh also told a suspiciously detailed story about “a guy in his neighborhood” who wears dresses, but I’d hate to speculate … Read more
Take THAT, reality! Ron Paul wins CPAC straw poll
If CPAC is the future of the “conservative movement,” bring it on. The convention that supposedly defines right wingery, and which is supposedly going to remake the big spending, Middle East invading Republican Party into something much more “conservative” was a masterstroke of incoherence. Read more
Wow. ‘Human Events’ editor jokes about IRS suicide attack
Jed Babbin proves it. The right is so full of self-hype and media-fueled piss and vinegar at this point, they’ve lost all sense of proportion.
I’m assuming Babbin knows someone — besides the terrorist pilot — died in that attack?
Photo of the week: Marco Rubio’s handy prompter
Marco Rubio mocks President Obama for using a teleprompter … while standing in front of a teleprompter. You really couldn’t make this stuff up… another look at Rubio’s new friend after he jump. Read more
Marco’s new friends (and bringing back Bush-Cheney?)
Dick Cheney made a surprise appearance at John Birch Society-sponsored CPAC conference today, so add him to the list of Marco Rubio’s newfound friends. In fact, Rubio’s fundraising fraternity, which includes Liz Cheney and Mary Matalin, his anointing by Jim DeMint, endorsements from Grover Norquist, (with whom he shares a belief in privatizing Social Security) and Karl Rove; his ties to Jeb Bush (even though apparently, like Iraq before he became president and was drafted into Jebbie’s neocon movement, George had no earthly idea who Rubio was just days ago,) and now his association with the Birchers, birthers, tea partiers and waterboarding fans at CPAC cement Rubio’s new persona: a very particular kind of right wing ideologue that the American people just ran out of Washington in 2008. Here’s Marco taking in the exultation of the torture aficionados:
Maybe it’s just me, but Rubio is looking less and less like some novel tea party confection and more like a Bush-Cheney restoration …
He’s not alone. During his CPAC speech, Romney was unabashed in his praise for the unloved former president. And with the Cheneys, Liz and Dick, being stars of the show along with Rubio, I think we’re seeing something truly remarkable: Republicans are full-on running on bringing back the Bush-Cheney era (well, at least the first term Bush-Cheney era, before Dubya came to his senses on the torture stuff …) from tax cuts for the rich, to torture, to deregulation, the whole hog. Hard to believe, but apparently true. Talk about chutzpah…?
Rubio is the belle of the ball at CPAC
The “darling of the conservative movement!” the “Cuban Ronald Reagan!” the “conservative messiah!” … the “right wing Obama!” You pick the encomium, it’ll come up this week. Write-up of Rubio’s CPAC kick-off speech here and here. Video:
Rubio’s latest position on climate change: ‘not anymore’
Marco Rubio doesn’t believe in the science … any more … ? Read more
TPDS: Tea Party Disillusionment Syndrome
Definition: when a conservative heads off to Nashville to revel in the company of his tea party brethren, only to discover that the people surrounding him, many wearing period costumes, are insane. From Newsweek comes the story of Jonathan Kay:
The tea-party movement has no leader. But it does have a face: William Temple of Brunswick, Ga. For months, the amiable middle-aged activist has been criss-crossing America, appearing at tea-party events dressed in his trademark three-cornered hat and Revolutionary garb. When journalists interview him (which is often—his outfit draws them in like a magnet), he presents himself as a human bridge between the founders’ era and our own. “We fought the British over a 3 percent tea tax. We might as well bring the British back,” he told NPR during a recent protest outside the Capitol.
t’s a charming act, which makes the tea-party movement seem no more unnerving than the people who spend their weekends reenacting the Civil War. But the 18th-century getups mask something disturbing. After I spent the weekend at the Tea Party National Convention in Nashville, Tenn., it has become clear to me that the movement is dominated by people whose vision of the government is conspiratorial and dangerously detached from reality. It’s more John Birch than John Adams. Read more
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