Helen Valois writes for RenewAmerica...
What I've always been told about this strategy is that it is the savvy thing to do, the "Clark Kent" approach to defending truth, justice, and the American way. To come right out and tell everyone where you stand isn't the way for a conservative candidate to get into office (so the argument goes), and you need to be in office to make a difference. And so, election after election, we've been prevailed upon to vote for some mild-mannered moderate, counting on him — like the adoring crowds looking up expectantly from the city sidewalk — to come through when the chips are down.
The only problem is that our Republican representatives and appointees, in office at last, promptly forgot about the "dashing for the phone booth" part of the deal. The Bush brothers (to mention but the most egregious of countless recent examples that spring readily to mind) didn't exactly rip their shirts open, revealing a bold conservative "C" on their chests, when Terri Schiavo's life was on the line. After decades of doing the Republicans' dirty work, we dreaded right-wing grassroots conspirators are finally having to face the pathetic facts: if it looks like a moderate and votes like a moderate, it's a moderate. Our heroes have turned out to need those horn-rimmed glasses after all.
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But Rubio, not only the first Cuban-American but the first minority to become Florida House speaker in the chamber's 162 years, has not always sounded like a populist.
He served for two years as the majority leader and mouthpiece for former Speaker Johnnie Byrd, remembered as one of the chamber's most partisan and ruthless leaders.
In recent years, he supported state intervention to keep Terri Schiavo alive, backed attempts to dilute the voter-approved reduction of class sizes and favored former Gov. Jeb Bush's voucher programs.
Son of immigrants trumpets people's agenda
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