Free Republic

It wasn’t long ago that conservative proponents of comprehensive immigration reform were insisting that the idea is popular among Republican voters. In 2014, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin told us, “nope, immigration reform [isn’t] toxic” and that “the anti-immigration forces are loud but in the distinct minority” within the Republican party. To be fair, Rubin and others of the same view backed up their claim with poll data, but they didn’t persuade me. I remembered how, during the 2012 primary season, Republican presidential candidates, whose polling operations have an enormous interest in being right, treated immigration reform as “toxic” indeed....

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says Donald Trump's comment that Sen. John McCain is not a war hero should disqualify him from the 2016 presidential race. "It's not just absurd, it's offensive. It's ridiculous. And I do think it's a disqualifier as commander-in-chief," Rubio said in an interview Sunday with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." The Florida senator was the latest Republican White House contender to hit Trump after the real estate mogul said Saturday that McCain "is not a war hero" because he was captured and held prisoner in Vietnam. "He is a war hero because he...

They use words like “historic” and “charismatic,” phrases like “great potential” and “million-dollar smile.” They notice audience members moved to tears by an American-dream-come-true success story. When they look at the cold, hard political math, they get uneasy. An incipient sense of anxiety is tugging at some Democrats — a feeling tersely captured in four words from a blog post written recently by a seasoned party strategist in Florida: “Marco Rubio scares me.” What is so unnerving to them at this early phase of the 2016 presidential campaign still seems, at worst, a distant danger: the prospect of a head-to-head...

Sen. Marco Rubio has emerged as the strongest candidate in the GOP presidential field, topping the rest of his announced and potential rivals for the nomination and running best against top Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a new Quinnipiac University Poll Thursday.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, said he believes that President Barack Obama’s first executive amnesty for so-called DREAMers—the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—is “important” and he won’t reverse it himself if elected president. He delivered these remarks in a Spanish-language interview he gave to Univision’s Jorge Ramos. “I believe DACA is important. It can’t be terminated from one moment to the next, because there are already people benefiting from it,” Rubio said in Spanish on Ramos’s television program, according to an English translation provided by the media service Grabien. “But yes, it is going to...

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is garnering support from mainstream Republican fundraisers and contributors for a 2016 presidential run, according to The Hill. Those backing Rubio are antagonistic toward the tea party and see him as an alternative to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who faced new allegations over the weekend that allegedly implicate him in the "Bridge-gate" lane-closing scandal. The senator's presidential stock has fluctuated. A year ago Time magazine hailed Rubio as "The Republican Savior" only to see him displaced by Christie after Rubio fumbled delivering the GOP response to the 2013 State of the Union Address. Rubio...

Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) political stock is rated a buy by major Republican fundraisers in Washington, who are bullish on Rubio’s future as a 2016 presidential candidate. A group of Republican fundraising heavyweights and wise men in Washington’s business community are solidly behind Rubio, and see him not only as someone who could win the White House, but someone they can work with. The fundraisers include Bill Paxon, a former New York lawmaker who is now a senior adviser at Akin Gump; Dirk Van Dongen, the president of the National Wholesalers Association; and Wayne Berman, a big-time donor with a...

As I said on a recent podcast, the GOP message is going to become "fix" ObamaCare. Here's Marco "Amnesty" Rubio. "The widespread problems with the ObamaCare website are generating a new backlash in Congress, with Sen. Marco Rubio planning to introduce legislation that would delay the health law's individual mandate until the technical failures are addressed. The Florida senator discussed the plan Tuesday morning in an interview with Fox News. He said it would be "prudent" to delay the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance -- set to kick in early next year -- until users can consistently access...

Carney announces that now the CR and Debt Ceiling have gone Obama's way, the president is putting "immigration reform" back on the front burner. "It's the right thing for America."

If Republicans don’t join together with Democrats to pass comprehensive immigration reform, “they will never win another national election,” according to Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). -snip- Gutierrez is an outspoken progressive, but he has still made somewhat unlikely alliances with Republicans in order to push immigration reform. In 2012, the Illinois Democrat praised the immigration reform strategy presented by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), someone he had previously called an “extremist.” Gutierrez also partnered with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) earlier this year, participating in a pair of immigration reform events in Chicago.

Immigration reform advocates plan an aggressive campaign to bring the issue back — and the White House has signaled it’s on board. Can Obama emerge from the fiscal crisis with enough momentum to win the immigration fight? As the fiscal fight roiling Washington nears its end, the White House is already signaling that it plans to use the political momentum it has gained during the shutdown fight to charge back into the immigration debate. And this time, Democratic pollsters and advocates say, they could actually win. The final chapter of the current crisis hasn’t been written yet, but Democrats in...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) faced hecklers angry with his leadership on immigration reform at a Friday Tea Party summit in his home state. According to reports, Rubio was met with cries of "No amnesty!" as he gave an address during the opening session of the Americans for Prosperity's Defending the American Dream Summit in Orlando.

As he moves across Florida this week, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is keeping two schedules. The public one, where he tells friendly, pro-business crowds what he sees as the dangers of Obamacare. And the invite-only one, where he seeks to reconnect with grass roots conservative activists who have questions — and some outrage — over his involvement in immigration reform. It's a two-step plan designed to repair Rubio's image, which has taken a beating in recent months, darkening the glow of his 2016 presidential The redemption tour continued Tuesday with stops in Tallahassee and Panama City and concludes today in...

On Mark Levin’s radio show on Monday, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio argued that Republicans should use Congress’ budgetary powers to defund President Barack Obama’s unpopular 2010 health care reform law. Rubio, who seemed to have fallen out of favor with Levin after the immigration debate in the Senate earlier this summer, used his appearance on the conservative talk radio program to talk about an idea that has pitted newer Republican legislators against a GOP establishment that insists the defunding scheme can’t work. “[T]here has to be some point at which we say, ‘Look, this is the issue where we...

The Mark Zuckerberg-backed organization pressing for immigration reform will launch its first wave of television ads Tuesday, in a move aimed at shoring up support for a large-scale immigration deal on the right, strategists for the group told POLITICO. FWD.us, the organization formed to push Silicon Valley’s priorities in Washington, will advocate for a new immigration law through a subsidiary group created specifically to court conservatives. Americans for a Conservative Direction will spend seven figures to run ads in more than half a dozen states, according to strategists who sketched out the organization’s plans. Continue Reading Text Size - +...

Thursday was another busy day for the Gang of 8 immigration reform effort, which has come to mean Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and his staff were everywhere on talk radio, on the Senate floor, at a press conference, manning their new Web site and sending batches of e-mails to the media to debunk attacks. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Rubio announced his delight that a third hearing, this one by the Joint House and Senate Economic Committee had been scheduled. (“We need more transparency and greater scrutiny of this bill as the process continues, and it’s important for...

As his lies are being exposed daily, Marco and his team are losing their heads.- The panic among the amnesty pimps has reached hysterical proportions. As conservatives increasingly discover how the 'Gang of Eight' amnesty bill would be an abject disaster for America, and also realize how Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has lied to them about its provisions, Rubio and his team have reacted with La Raza talking points, and now disgraceful race-baiting. Case in point, Rubio's spokesperson Alex Conant - in a Twitter exchange with Washington Examiner columnist Conn Carroll, R- said, “We haven’t had a cohort of people...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) joined President Obama for his second closed-door dinner with Senate Republicans on Wednesday. Rubio had been invited but had not committed for most of the day of the dinner. The Florida Republican's office said immigration meetings might get in the way of him going to the dinner, but later said he would attend. Besides Rubio, Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), John Boozman (Ark.), Susan Collins (Maine), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Deb Fisher (Neb.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Johnny Isackson (Ga.), Pat Roberts (Kan.), John Thune (S.D.) Roger Wicker (Miss.) dined with Obama. Obama's first meeting with...

He's already being treated like the 2016 GOP presidential front-runner, and now there is another reason Republicans are excitedly buzzing about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: He alone would reverse the party's slide among Hispanic voters. A new nationwide poll from JZ Analytics found that Rubio would get 48 percent of the Hispanic vote, about twice what Mitt Romney won in 2012. Republican strategist told Secrets that a win among Latino voters that big would assure Rubio the presidency, since he would also likely keep the regular GOP base. "If he does that good, then he's the next president," said a...

Many Republicans see Marco Rubio as a rising star who can help them win over the fast-growing Hispanic population, but the Florida senator says toned-down rhetoric on the hot-button issue of immigration would be more likely to bring those voters to the GOP. "The policies are important, but the rhetoric is sometimes the impediment," Mr. Rubio said in an interview. "Sometimes—and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone—the way the message is communicated is harmful and has hurt Republicans."