By Will Heaven
“He’s the only guy I know on the scene today who makes grown men cry,” says Florida’s former Governor, Jeb Bush. And Mr Bush isn’t the only one to notice Marco Rubio’s special quality. Already at the Telegraph,Jon Swaine has been captivated by the Republican’s final TV ad for the Senate, while Alex Spillius noted he outshone Sarah Palin at a campaign event in Florida. Toby Harnden reckoned he is “one of the most exciting new faces in the Republican Party” (and that Mitt Romney will need to win his support sooner rather than later for a 2012 presidential campaign). Now I’ve the caught the bug, too.
Why? Simple enough. Marco Rubio is the first Tea Party candidate I’ve come across who – if I was an American – I’d actually consider voting for. In fact, and I may be getting ahead of myself here, he’s the only Tea Party candidate so far who I can imagine being President of the USA one day.
More important than my inexpert opinion, however, is that this guy has serious momentum, comparable even to Barack Obama’s leading up to the 2008 presidential election. This week’s Time magazine, with its profile of Marco Rubio as “the upstart”, explains why. The piece – which is about “the party crashers”, a new breed of Republican candidates who are tapped into voter rage and who upset the establishment – charts Rubio’s entry into the Florida Senate race.
In starts in the winter of 2009, shortly after Barack Obama’s election as US President. Back then Florida’s Governor, Charlie Crist, adopted a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach to the Republicans’ brave new world. He backed Obama’s economic stimulus and even hugged the new president on stage. David Von Drehle writes:
…Rubio saw an opportunity in that hug. If one possible Republican strategy was to embrace the Democratic spending agenda, surely there was a case to be made for opposing it. Rubio decided to “stand up to this Big Government agenda, not be co-opted by it,” and three months after The Hug, tossed his hat into the ring. The date was May 5, 2009.
Von Drehle thinks “that was the day the 2010 elections truly began”. We now know that Rubio either “guessed right” (or, to give him the benefit of the doubt, showed remarkable foresight). Crist, thought by the Republican establishment to be an easy shoo-in, was eventually forced to quit the GOP primary and run as an independent. Tonight, Rubio is expected to win.
His victory will encourage further murmurings – oh yeah, I’m not the first– about a possible 2012 bid, from pundits all over the world. As the Miami Herald’s Beth Reinhard reports, 232 media outlets have requested credentials for his election night party, including 75 members of the foreign press (hat-tip: Jeremy P. Jacobs). Quite some buzz.
So what might stop Marco Rubio running for president at this point in time? Well first, his age – he’s only 39. Second, the great She-Moose, Sarah Palin, who may have other ideas. Third: in Matt Lewis’s words, will Rubio will be “wise to seize his opportunity” like Barack Obama?
Based solely on his ruthless gutting of Governor Charlie Crist, I’d have said: you bet.
Read the original article here.
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