Posted on 02/05/2016 6:21:30 AM PST by Kaslin
"The Republican Obama."
That's the new hot attack on Sen. Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz leveled the epithet at Rubio just days before the Iowa caucuses, which is a little ironic since Cruz has been called the same thing in the past.
But the leader of the opposition to Rubio, at least when it comes to this line, is actually someone not in the race: Joe Scarborough, the normally affable host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Contrary to all evidence, Scarborough has denied he has an unhealthy obsession with his fellow Floridian. But given Scarborough's near-relentless denigration of Rubio, objective viewers might wonder if Rubio had run over Scarborough's dog or toilet-papered his house one Halloween night in junior high school.
On Thursday morning's show, Scarborough launched into an extended tirade about the best ways for other Republicans to attack Rubio. Sounding a bit like an armchair general who can't wait any longer to be asked his opinion, Scarborough declared, "He is the Republican Obama. And he really is." Time magazine, Scarborough complained with more than a touch of resentment, "anointed him the Republican Party's savior before he threw his first pitch."
"Seriously," Scarborough added, "I have complained for years that Barack Obama was sold and marketed like a bag of potato chips, and when I have said it, every Republican has agreed with me, and I said it was a bad move for America when they had a chance to have a more experienced candidate. Even Hillary Clinton. So now Republicans are going ... down that road to elect a guy that has been marketed like a bag of potato chips. Good luck."
It's almost as if Scarborough forgot that Obama was elected -- twice.
Because he has a unique animosity for Rubio, Scarborough left out that his indictment applies in equal measure to Cruz, another first-term senator who hit the ground running for the White House. Indeed, Cruz has been in the Senate for even less time than Rubio.
Scarborough is certainly right that Rubio's list of Senate accomplishments is short. So is Cruz's, and for largely the same reasons. They haven't been around long, and in the last year -- with Republicans in control -- the GOP has mostly focused on limiting any further damage Obama can do.
Which brings us back to this whole "Republican Obama" thing. For Scarborough, not to mention Jeb Bush and N.J. Gov. Chris Christie, the charge that Rubio is a Republican Obama is meant to be a scathing indictment of Rubio's inexperience. But that may not be the way everyone hears it. They might hear: "He's a Republican who can win."
Moreover, while conservatives have rightly faulted President Obama for not being up to the job, particularly when it comes to foreign policy, that indictment isn't the one most on the right focus on. Rather, conservatives have been told, with good reason, that Obama has been a hugely effective progressive ideologue.
While Obama has been something of a disaster for the Democratic Party in terms of congressional and state offices, he still got Obamacare. He also helped steer same-sex marriage to a victory at the Supreme Court, a court where his two ideologically left-wing appointees sit. His EPA helped kill the coal industry while he's poured billions in subsidies into wind and solar boondoggles.
No Republican wants to emulate Obama's many failures, but few wouldn't love to emulate his successes -- in a conservative way.
The point is, it depends what you mean by a Republican Obama. For instance, when Cruz was elected to the Senate, many conservatives hoped -- and many liberals feared -- that he would be a Republican Obama.
My National Review colleague Jay Nordlinger wrote back in 2009, before Cruz was elected, "Is he our Obama -- a Republican Obama? Well, he is far less slippery than our new president. But there are similarities -- especially where communications skills are concerned."
Every candidate's record is fair game. But by their very nature, arguments about a politician's record are arguments about the past. Rubio and Cruz -- or as I like to call them, Los Hermanos Cubanos -- can frame their candidacies on the future. In a year when a majority of Americans -- and a super-majority of Republicans -- think the country is on the wrong track, that's an advantage.
As Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen wrote last year, "Those who dismiss Cruz as a 'Republican Obama' should not forget what we call Obama today: Mr. President."
Nail...head.
There is always an agenda.
Any Cheap Labor Express candidate will be a Designated Loser.
I, and millions like me, will not endorse with our votes national suicide through amnesty.
Amnesty will give the Democrats a permanent majority.
Pyrrhic victory at best if he wins.
Rubio has a long established rep here in florida. He’s a careerist dirt bag who will install the Chamber of Commerce agenda if he gets elected POTUS.
I’m not saying Rubio is gay but there are plenty of men who have come out late in life being married with children. I expect Chrisley who knows best, to come out any day now:-)
The MSM will avoid the Gay Marco meme until after they help to nominate him.
Then they’ll drop the bomb.
LOL. Did you say Chrisley. I know plenty come out later in life. Not sure that means much. :)
So, he pandered to the Hispanics for votes? He played the Hispanic card. What else is new. Illegal is illegal. I guess you are not about illegal, but about a path to citizenship........or, let’s call it what it is....amnesty.
Probably the reason one hears so little lately of his fag-boots or his toupee.
Or of the "wandering" eye of his Dolphins Cheerleader wife (wish I could remember the source for that) or of his bare chested photos that have been artfully reposed so as to give a modicum of doubt that it is really him.
I think he's a vain perverted caricature of a man, but most of my dislike are his policies as he has previously stated...that amnesty is inevitable and will be unconditional, that we "need" the immigrants, legal or illegal to continue our American way of life, and his absolute NON-position on the 2nd Amendment and his assertion that Castro was not really that bad of a person.
So, yeah, I agree...he will be the reincarnation of Paul Revere, Nathan Hale and Ben Franklin via the liberal MSM, until it is time for the vote to be cast and there is no other option.
Then the media will discover and disclose, that, GASP!, our hero has legs of clay!
This will not do...vote for the all-brass Hillary or Sanders...or whatever the liberal/progressive/socialist du jour is.
Rubio is bi..........partisan.
Ronald Reagan made the same mistake and went on to be a great President. Rubio has a chance to be one too.
Reagan was a two-time governor, what has Rubio ever done. It’s an insult to Reagan to even mention Rubio in the same sentence.
So, learn from Reagan’s mistake. Don’t repeat it. Gang of 8 haunts Rubio.
It haunted Reagan too. Marco is young enough to learn. He has bonafided conservative Cred just like Rush says.
In some ways I agree. I have not come to this lightly. But my point is they made the same mistake.
I cannot forgive him the Gang of 8. I will not consider him in the primaries and pray he fails to win the nomination. I am mad enough about this stuff to sit it out if he wins. He and Jeb are the GOPe’s choice and I won’t have it.
Did you forgive Ronald Reagan?
Not for that. Reagan caved and I was stunned, but he was already president. He was not running on that position as Rubio clearly is. Once burned, twice shy.
Ok, I get that. I am forgiving him because I honestly believe if I don’t I will be saying President Clinton agai. I don’t want to do that. Rubio is a better candidate than Romney and way more conservative than McCain, And the establishment is spending millions of dollars to beat him.
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