Posted on 04/15/2015 8:03:22 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Marco Rubio announced his candidacy for president yesterday. He may be half of the makings of the 2016 GOP dream ticket.
The Republicans have two big problems to solve if they hope to win the White House next time around. No, I am not talking about cracking the Latin American ancestry vote. It would be good for the party to do that, though probably more essential in the long run than right away. And there are questions about whether putting a Cuban-American on the ticket does that anyway.
Cubans are already among the country’s highest turnout populations (67.2% in 2012, according to Pew Research Center) and are a strongly GOP group. All the talk about the GOP needing to win Hispanics has missed that the so-called Latino vote is actually a collection of national groups. The two biggest blocks are Mexicans and Central Americans. These voters have similar concerns and cast their ballots in similar ways, that is, heavily Democrat. They see Cuban-Americans as entirely different from themselves and Cuban-Americans agree. So while Rubio’s parentage may help the GOP cut into that the “Hispanic” vote, don’t count on a huge movement to the party from those quarters just because he is on the ticket.
No, the real Rubio effect (if there is one) will be for reasons that are completely different. Rubio helps fix problems rooted in geography and what you might call mood.
For the geography question, think back on election night 2012. Remember how Karl Rove on the Fox Election Night desk could not believe that Ohio had gone for the president. Remember the camera following him down the Fox corridor to the statisticians’ office to challenge the call. So long as the party is shut out of California and New York, it must crack two regions. The Midwest is one. That’s why Rove was so shocked. With the rest of the Midwest (except Indiana) lost, Ohio was half of the game. The other half was Florida. With Rubio on the ticket, it is hard to imagine the GOP losing Florida.
The “mood” question is something else. I use the term as an alternative to what people mean when they say ideology. I do not believe that the divisions in the party have much to do with ideology.
If you press them, almost all Republican are for a significantly smaller Federal government presence in the economy and daily life, a stronger national defense (Rand Paul’s move to the center on security matters reflects his recognition of this), and greater fidelity to the original intent of the Constitution. But the reform wing of the party is intensely impatient to turn the government in that direction; the so-called establishment is more focused on the obstacles that must be overcome.
This is not a new division for the GOP. From Lincoln’s election in 1860 to Reagan’s in 1980, the party has had to cope with recurring divisions between reform and old guard factions. And when split that way, the winning tickets have been composed of one candidate from the reform wing who was acceptable to the establishment and another closer to the establishment wing who was acceptable to the reformers. This is why I say that Rubio could be half the making of a dream ticket.
In Rubio and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, the party now has a pair of candidate(s) who together (bring) both Florida and the Great Lakes states. Both come from the party’s reform wing but establishment leaders like and respect both. And to add to that both have family histories that speak of universally shared American aspirations – in Rubio the immigrant family that made their way up; in Walker the hard working parents of modest means (father a Baptist preacher; mother a bookkeeper) whose son did the same.
Could any pair provide a starker or more appealing contrast to Hillary Clinton than would they?
Clark S. Judge: managing director, White House Writers Group, Inc.; chairman, Pacific Research Institute
Get rid of most of the departments by Allen West for Sec Def.
Get rid of most of the departments but Allen West for Sec Def.
It looks like Clark picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
You should add La Raza Rick Perry to that list as he is another potential candidate who has voiced support for amnesty.
Regarding EC, crossovers, etc (as you asked for) Rubio as the #2 on the ticket is going to help.
The biggest benefit he adds, tho, is that his presence helps innoculate the GOP ticket against direct and inferred charges of bigotry that play well with white centrist/moderate/independent voters INS variety of swing states (OH, CO, VA, NC)
You would probably see truly massive turnout by the FL Cuban community, well above their usual turnout (which is high) and with a much higher % going GOP. With a perfect storm of voting for one of their own and abject anger towards the Obama Admins opening to the Castros.
However that would provide the margin in a close race. A bigger factor will be whether a spurned Jeb Bush would throw the full weight of his state political apparatus behind a candidate other than himself, and esp given his not great history with Rubio.
Can someone explain why Marco Rubio gets more credit for being Latino than Ted Cruz?
You have company.
You’re right that we don’t know all there is to know about Walker, yet. He is “evolving” on the immigration issue, from Chamber of Commerce economic support to visiting the southern border, now convinced of the dangers, he is saying the same as ALL of our candidates are going to be saying— “Close the border FIRST, and then we can talk about who stays and who goes”.
None of our candidates are going to be seen reserving trains, planes and automobiles for some mass deportation of all illegals. They are going to put off, stall, divert and delay, by using the “close the border FIRST” mantra.
It will be decades, if ever. Count on it.
Interesting points. There are many ways to stack the deck and twist the knife.
I wonder how Carly Fiorina (also a grandmother) will perform in the debates. She has a sharpness/clarity (so unlike Hillary) that is refreshing because she's on the right side of the issues.
Possibly. I like Walker a lot, although Rubio is pretty strong and usually the Presidential candidate doesn’t pick a VP who is as strong as he is, in one way or another. Rubio is a great speaker and when he talks about his experience, he doesn’t talk about being Cuban American, per se, but about his family building their new lives here and his becoming successful, which is a positive message for any immigrant.
BTW, people here on FR put down Mexicans, but they’re incredibly hard-working and capitalistic. I was in Mexico City two weeks ago, and as always, I was impressed by the absolute hive of activity that I saw, even though for most people it was probably barely netting them enough to survive on. But they’re remarkably positive and convinced that they’ll be able to succeed. A nice characteristic, since people in the US are now being taught that success is bad, failure is to be expected, and government support is the only option.
The problem in voting is that the Democratic party convinces immigrants that without the party, they’d be driven out of the country with sticks and stones, because the “evil GOP hates Hispanics”. It’s a pity so many people on the right are willing to jump in and make it look like this is the truth.
Obsviously, with Rubio the conservative passion is skin deep.
I hear you and agree.
The thing that kills initiative the fastest is taking away someone’s will to work (we’re happy working and being productive) and then working to make sure it is generational through welfare dependency.
The Left must keep us at each others’ throats (Obama and his racist remarks and actions) so that they can stay busy, unnoticed behind the scenes (or like Hillary - a billionaire telling the COMMON people she wants to be their champion) with her D.C. and country houses worth millions each - and their daughter set up in a $10M place in NYC.
Hillary who isn’t bound by any laws.
What a crock.
Ditto all their other whipped up grievance groups.
There are times I see comments here that make me believe their only reason for posting is to make this site look bad - and push people into the “caring” liberal trap.
I think the better VP alternative for whoever is picked as the presidential candidate is Carly Fiorina. Number 1 she is good and Number 2 she cuts off the sexism charges which will be leveled at the Republican ticket whenever they disagree with Hillary. It is pretty difficult to scream sexism at a ticket that has a woman on it.
Honestly, with this issue simply saying 'no amnesty, enforce the laws currently in place' is enough for some to scream 'you must hate hispanics'.
I wasn’t talking about “amnesty” or even about Hispanics...I was talking about how Freepers cannot forget the fact that Rubio has a Spanish last name, which appears to drive them into a frenzy, even though he just talks about immigrants and ways to help them be productive Americans (as he and his family obviously did).
He’s not running as “Hispanic,” but obviously he’s going to mention his family’s immigrant background and all the opportunities they got in the US. And that’s a bad thing?
And I was talking about the fact that people should stop doing what the Dems do, which is looking for bloc votes (”will appeal to Evangelicals,” “will appeal to women,” “will appeal to blacks,” etc.) and actually pick some good candidates on the basis of their ideas, not their religious or cultural group.
I’d also like to hear more from Jindal, somebody else with an immigrant background.
I have my eye on her. She could be a real surprise.
Guess I'll have to watch more closely.
Cruz doesn’t speak Spanish and is an Evangelical, which of course is all that matters on this site. He has talked about this and presents himself this way. To me, this is pandering as much as claiming you’re black, Hispanic, Asian or whatever. I’m Catholic, and I couldn’t stand Rick Santorum because he kept presenting him and his family as sort of Catholic paragons, and somehow we should vote for him because he was a Christian.
Forget that, I want somebody who has ideas, can express them, and understands our history. Few of the candidates do.
Incidentally, on Spanish radio, the Spanish language ads depict Cruz as Hispanic and being in favor of changes to immigration laws (which I think there should be, so he’s realistic...fewer Muslims, and bring back the old larger Latin American legal quota that Obama gave to Muslims). So maybe Cruz is trying to play it both ways.
I think Cruz is a brilliant guy, I don’t think he has the ability to win friends and influence people and be president, but I’d love to see him as AG. He would totally clean up our country and is probably the only one with the determination and guts to root out Obama’s corruption. Don’t forget, it was Cruz who argued Bush vs. Gore in front of the Supreme Court.
But I hate it when people here automatically start screaming ugly things about Rubio, not based on his ideas, but on the fact that he’s (in their minds) “Hispanic.” Personally, I think he considers himself “American.” But maybe that’s old fashioned of me.
.
>> “I was talking about how Freepers cannot forget the fact that Rubio has a Spanish last name, which appears to drive them into a frenzy...” <<
Thanks for inviting us to your Democrat pretender plantation.
Rubio staked his career on a deal with Satan, and there is no un-ringing that bell.
.
.
You need to talk to people from Lucent about Carly.
.
.
>> “Can someone explain why Marco Rubio gets more credit for being Latino than Ted Cruz?” <<
.
Because he cut a bad deal with the far left.
.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.