Free Republic

There's fresh evidence here of the unthinkable: Florida's biggest Republican stars, former governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio, run the risk of losing their state's winner-take-all primary next year to an out-of-state contender. A loss in their home state could force both Bush and Rubio out of the presidential race after March 15, when Florida and three other states will hold the first winner-take-all primaries.

The 2013 Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill is the signature achievement of Marco Rubio's four years and ten months in the U.S. Senate. Yet in the first four Republican presidential debates, in which Rubio has played an increasingly prominent role, he has not been asked even once about the specifics of the legislation. Despite that omission, it seems likely that if Rubio continues to rise in the GOP race, someone, somewhere will pay attention to his most important accomplishment. The 1,197-page Gang of Eight bill is so far-reaching, and at the same time so detailed, that it provides...

The 2016 Republican nominating contest will eventually boil down to a two-man race between a pair of Senate freshmen: Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas. That’s the increasingly popular theory being advanced by a growing number of political prognosticators in recent weeks as both candidates trend upward in national polling. To wit, here’s Matt Lewis during Tuesday night’s presidential debate: Tonight was a step toward the Cruz vs Rubio final act a lot of us are anxious to see.— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) November 11, 2015 It’s not hard to see the appeal of such a denouement....

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who received widespread praise for his Tuesday debate performance in which he slammed the media for its biased coverage of immigration, continued his verbal broadside against pro-amnesty special interests on today's program of the Laura Ingraham Show. In perhaps his most detailed comments to date criticizing donor-class favorite Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ted Cruz gave a crushing assessment of Rubio's involvement in co-authoring the La Raza-backed Gang of Eight bill. Cruz outlined Rubio's coordinated effort with Chuck Schumer to sabotage conservative efforts to add popular amendments to the Obama-championed measure: -snip- Cruz told Ingraham that while...

I remember the spring of 2013 like it was yesterday. It was one of the busiest times of my career. Republicans were working overtime to codify Obama’s open borders agenda into law, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was the ring leader of the effort. The voice of the people was not being heard and we were subjected to fallacious talking points on a daily basis. Along with several other conservative writers, I wrote dozens of articles exposing the details and the broader implications of the 1,000-page piece of bilge that is known as the “Gang of 8” bill. Instead of...

Marco Rubio’s staffers seem to understand that this race is likely to boil down to a race between their employer and Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas. As a result, they apparently feel the need to smear their guy’s main rival. They do that by spreading a video in which Ted Cruz appears to support amnesty – at least in some cases and for some people. Here’s a tweet in which a staffer makes the case that Cruz is a new convert to the ‘no amnesty’ point of view: [QUOTED TWEET] And then there's this one: [QUOTED TWEET] Shocking, right?...

Candidate says he is open to 'very long' path to citizenship for immigrants. Marco Rubio insisted he learned his lesson when he abandoned his controversial immigration bill: Congress could not tackle such an issue in a comprehensive fashion. But on the campaign trail, Rubio says he's open to the most controversial aspect of that plan: a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants. Rubio laid out this week a list of criteria illegal immigrants would have to meet to earn citizenship -- mirroring the controversial Gang of Eight bill that he has methodically been distancing himself from...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) declared Thursday that "people will have to be deported" before Congress can move forward on immigration reform. Rubio, whose past support for comprehensive immigration reform has been in the spotlight as he's risen in the GOP primary polls, said Americans would be skeptical of any attempts to revisit reform until the nation shows it's committed to enforcing current laws. "We are going to have to deport some people, otherwise if you're not going to enforce the law, what's the point of having those laws?," Rubio said on Fox's "America's Newsroom." "Criminals are going to be deported....

'We call him 'the Amnesty Man' Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are both big supporters of foreign guest-worker visas that allow U.S. companies to outsource skilled labor positions. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, left, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are both big supporters of foreign guest-worker visas that allow U.S. companies to outsource skilled labor positions. Nevada construction worker Paul Arnold will be standing out front of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, Saturday with his 8-year-old son, leading protests and calling for a boycott of the iconic American company for its anti-American hiring policies. But more...

Saint Petersburg, Fla. -- The best debate this year may have passed the moniker of "GOP establishment candidate" from a mentor to his onetime student. Whether it will be a permanent shift remains to be seen. Moreover, it may be a title that no candidate wants to claim in 2016. The Fox Business debate this week was truly a treat to those who crave bona fide policy discussions among the candidates. The moderators asked meaty questions about issues that impact the economy. As host Neil Cavuto put it afterward, "It wasn't about us. It was about them." That allowed him...

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Thursday that while some illegal immigrants will have to be deported, it's unrealistic to think it can happen for all of the approximately 11 million in the United States. Mr. Rubio was asked if he would accept or denounce 2016 GOP presidential rival Donald Trump's tough deportation plan, and the Florida senator said both sides have valid points to make. "We are going to have to deport some people - otherwise, if you're not going to enforce your laws, what's the point of having those laws?" Mr. Rubio said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom."...

The currently considered TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) trade deal has the potential to be the fulcrum under every plank in the 2016 presidential election. Many people view immigration as the #1 concern underlying further economic issues – however, few people recognize that immigration is actually part of the TPP construct. You can learn more about TPP in summary form HERE and HERE So lets take this conversation back to where it belongs, at the point where massive money intersects with consequential presidential politics. Globalists, via Wall Street international financiers, are determined to get TPP passed into law.  Only a few of the GOP candidates stand...

Earlier this week Marco Rubio went on Hannity to discuss the current state of his campaign. Rubio was asked about the 'Gang of 8' Amnesty plan he supported immediately after joining the US Senate with Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin. Rubio doubled down. Marco Rubio: Look I live in a state that was deeply impacted by immigration and I was trying to make a difference. I was trying to make the most conservative bill possible in a senate controlled by Democrats. This morning Gang of Ocho member Marco Rubio told America's Newsroom that he will not support mass deportation of...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) is offering up an incentive to people who ditch his presidential rivals to support his campaign instead: a chest-bump. Bush smacked pectorals Wednesday with an Iowa man who Bush said was a co-chairman for Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) campaign, but changed his mind about who to back in 2016 after watching Tuesday's Republican presidential debate. "I do that for every convert," Bush told reporters, as quoted by The New York Times. "Anytime you guys want to try a chest bump, I'm all in."

ATLANTIC, Iowa - Jeb Bush says he understands the anger that illegal immigration stirs in this nation, but he argues that it's "impractical" to deport every immigrant. Instead, Bush tried to sell a crowd of about 100 Iowans on Wednesday that the best way to solve this problem is to allow immigrants to earn legal status in this country by paying a fine and learning English. They would not be allowed full citizenship, but they would be allowed to stay and work, Bush said during a 60-minute town hall meeting in Atlantic. -snip- On Wednesday in Atlantic, Bush appeared to...

Sen. Marco Rubio clarified his view on the 11 million immigrants, who are in the United States illegally. The day after a presidential debate, which exposed a continuing divide in the Republican Party on immigration, Rubio told NPR on Wednesday that he favors a path to citizenship for some, though the prospect would be very distant. "If you haven't been here very long, or you're a criminal, you will be deported," Rubio told NPR's Morning Edition. "Otherwise, you will have to come forward, pass the background check, learn English, pay a fine, because you violated the law, start paying taxes,...

John Kasich, polling nationally at about 3 percent for the Republican presidential nomination, made a gamble during the last GOP debate that if he fought to be heard, even out of turn, it might help his chances. The conservative media heard him clearly, but they didn't like the noise. Republican pollster Frank Luntz concluded from one of his focus groups in New Hampshire that Kasich "nosedived every other time he spoke.""John Kasich couldn't help himself — interrupting, interjecting, intruding or worse," Luntz wrote at FoxNews.com on Wednesday, a day after the debate. "According to our voters, he was 'rude ......

During last night's Republican presidential debate, Rand Paul criticized Marco Rubio's "plan for $1 trillion in new military spending" as "not very conservative." Rubio responded by inaccurately describing Paul as "a committed isolationist" and declaring (twice) that the United States needs to be "the strongest military power in the world." But Rubio did not explain why a bigger Pentagon budget is necessary to accomplish that goal. After all, the U.S. already devotes much more money to military spending than any other country. Paul said "we spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined." According to the latest...

Rubio: 'We need more welders and less philosophers' At Fox Business Network's Republican presidential debate, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) argued that increased vocational training and other measures would be more effective at helping American workers than raising the minimum wage. (Fox Business Network) During the fourth Republican debate, Marco Rubio picked up a point touched on by Rick Santorum in the undercard debate earlier in the night. 'Welders,' Rubio said, 'make more money than philosophers.' Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler looked at the idea, but we thought it could use a visual. Using data from the Web site PayScale, we...

Let's zero in on a telling moment in Tuesday night's Republican presidential debate. A little more than halfway in, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) got into a heated back-and-forth about how much to spend on America's military, with Rubio accusing Paul of being an isolationist and Paul accusing Rubio of wanting to spend too much on defense and bankrupting the country. The exchange was so contentious that other candidates wanted to get involved, lest a key moment pass by without their input. Many of them tried to interject all at once. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) jumped...