Tag Archives: Rubio

What Obama Must Do Now

With his Supreme Court victory on Obamacare, the President must blunt the GOP’s strategy of distorting what the health care law means and creating panic and anger about it.  It would have been better for the President to run again after the law became full effective and Americans lived with it for awhile, but that isn’t happening.  The GOP will try to manipulate our fear of the unknown, and the Obama campaign can’t let them get away with it.

Not long after the decision was announced, Marco! Rubio! was on Fox News yelling about this huge “tax increase” and warning viewers that the IRS will be coming after them.  He was a conservative Cuban-American version of Paul Revere, crying “The IRS is coming, the IRS is coming!”

 

Marco! Rubio! Says Mitt Did Invite Him

I posted yesterday that Mittens is having a big retreat in Park City, Utah this weekend for his major donors and supporters.  I wrote that while a number of potential veeps would be there (Portman, Ryan, Pawlenty), Rubio had not been invited.

Today Rubio says he was invited, but he wants to spend the weekend with his kids.  People who want to spend weekends with their kids don’t go into politics.

Rubio Off Guest List

Mittens is having a very high-profile retreat this weekend for his biggest ($50,000 and up) donors and supporters in  Park City, Utah.  VP short-listers Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, Paul Ryan, and John Thune will all be there.  Marco Rubio?  His invitation seems to have gotten lost in the mail.

Who else will be there?  Bold-faced GOP names like Condi Rice, Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush, John McCain, Karl Rove, Fred Barnes.   Lots of super rich Mittmen (and women) like Meg Whitman and Frank Langone.

Another Unforced Error for Mitt

Ok, so the AP reported that Mitt wasn’t vetting Marco! Rubio! for Veep.  Then a couple of Romney advisers confirmed that to the Washington Post.  This on the very day that Rubio’s autobiography came out, when he’s trying to get people to go to Amazon and click because they think he might be VP.

Then Mitt himself said he wouldn’t get involved in the speculation.

Then noises began being made that not vetting Rubio was an insult to Hispanic voters.   It’s one thing not to choose him, but it’s another not to even have him on the short list.

Mitt realized he had a problem.  So Mitt then said Rubio WAS being “thoroughly vetted.”

This quells today’s negative tick-tock (so Mitt hopes), but it doesn’t change the final outcome — it doesn’t look as if Rubio will get the nod .

Two Romney advisers, Stuart Stevens and Russ Schriefer, worked for Charlie Crist in the 2010 Senate race that Rubio won.  They did oppo research on Rubio, and they may know things that would be embarrassing if Rubio were on the ticket.  Not all oppo research gets used at the time, some gets filed away.  They may know stuff we know nothing about, or they may know more about issues we’ve heard about, like Rubio’s improper use of an AmEx card.

Bottom line — this has been handled very poorly.  I keep hearing such great things about Mitt’s team, their smarts and their discipline.  I wasn’t impressed in 2008, and I’m not impressed now.

It’s all about winning the day.  Today Chicago won, and Boston lost.

How Veepstakes Look from the Beltway

The National Journal offers its latest rankings for Mitt’s VP choice:

# 1  Ohio Senator Rob Portman (up from #4)

# 2  Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (up from #7)

# 3  Florida Senator Marco Rubio (down from #2)

# 4  Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan (down from #1)

# 5  Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (up from #8)

# 6 Wild Card (up from #10)

# 7  Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (not ranked)

# 8  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (down from #5)

# 9  Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (down from #3)

#10  New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte (down from #6)

Nobody on this list would get me to vote for Mitt.  I think he’d have to kidnap my son and hold a gun to his head to get me to vote for him.