Rubio tells supporters he is running for White House

[Jingthing]

Democrats say God Bless America too.

Out of the closet atheists are not accepted.

[Scott]

Off-topic posts and replies removed.

[Anthony5]

Senator Rubio's foreign policy fluency, four years of study on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his detailed understanding of global hotspots and a travel itinerary that has taken him to Afghanistan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Malta, Libya, Spain, Germany, Haiti, Colombia, Jordan, Israel, London, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea.will serve him well.

And all that at the expense of the American people

[Jingthing]

Seriously ... do many people really think he even has a reasonable shot at the nomination?

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[Publicus]

Seriously ... do many people really think he even has a reasonable shot at the nomination?

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

The prevailing view among the Republican moneybags, party pros, MSM commentators, political analysists, pollsters and the like is tied to the polls.

The polls of R party primary voters in caucus and primary states have, in order, Bush, Walker, Rubio. They're basically bunched at the top, with Paul, Cruz, Huckabee among others further on down the pecking order.

With 40% of R party voters consistently telling pollsters of all stripes they won't vote for another Bush, eyes turn to Walker. Walker is however a rookie and is a governor and worse, a governor from a Mid-West state (upper) away from coastal areas and activities of every kind. Walker resembles JEB on issues but even further over to the right. Walker is sharply divisive too, but on the issues.

Smiley Rubio is not Cruz or Paul or any of the rest of 'em. He's regarded as more of a JEB or his old man, a better Romney, the foreign policy moderate contrasted to McCain, and he appeals to young people, not to mention Hispanics.

The long and the short of it as I see it is that if JEB goes bust and if Walker falters or fails to catch fire, the massive right of center primary and caucuses would rush in to get behind Cruz to overwhelm the R establishment center and center-right, namely, Rubio. And that it could be worse for the Rs next year than it was for the Rs in 1964 when Goldwater got blown out in an LBJ landslide.

Rand Paul is sharply anti-McCain so he's not really a Republican and Sen Paul comes from a family political tradition that makes him suspect in either party, so Cruz would be the darling alternative to the Republican establishment the same as Goldwater was. Walker will have his chance if he wins Iowa or at least beats Bush in Iowa, which looks like a gimmie for Walker.

The New Hampshire primary will test whether the 40% of Rs who say no to voting again for a Bush mean what they say by burning Bush there. If so, then it would be Walker's ball to carry from then on, would it not, with S Carolina coming next and so far right they're almost left down there.

[chuckd]

Seriously ... do many people really think he even has a reasonable shot at the nomination?

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With all the personal attacks being thrown at him on this thread, it would seem the participants here are worried.

If he isn't a threat, why not simply ignore him?

[Credo]

You mean like some members aren't doing on the Hillary thread?

[chuckd]

You mean like some members aren't doing on the Hillary thread?

Hillary is the only Democratic party potential nominee at this time. Of course she is a threat.

She is the ONLY threat at this point.

[Jingthing]

Seriously ... do many people really think he even has a reasonable shot at the nomination?

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With all the personal attacks being thrown at him on this thread, it would seem the participants here are worried.

If he isn't a threat, why not simply ignore him?

It could be because his launch speech was so nasty against Hillary. He also insulted all older Americans to suggest that just being young means you have the answers for the future and just because you're older means you don't. The truth is it's about the person and their experience.

[Publicus]

Seriously ... do many people really think he even has a reasonable shot at the nomination?

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

With all the personal attacks being thrown at him on this thread, it would seem the participants here are worried.

If he isn't a threat, why not simply ignore him?

Speaking for myself, I offered a response to a specific question just above from here.

Sen Rubio is a possible nominee but it is not presently possible to judge any likelihood of his getting the nomination.

We do know Rubio does not have a straight line to it. That's JEB.

Walker comes after that, certainly based on the initial developments.

Rubio is possible if the other two fall or fail to rise. So, what about that?

He's a born campaigner, attractive as a candidate, has excellent rhetoric, is intelligent and witty, down to earth and not of elite schools or background. Rubio would get all the establishment money he'd need and then some to be competitive against HRC.

A major downside to these inexperienced R candidates is that, whomever is the R party nominee, he won't have any or many Party advisers to draw on that have successful R party presidential campaign experience. JEB is the guy who could get the few that are around but he doesn't want any of 'em, I'd be sure. HRC already has Barack's twice polling and strategy director and a few more crackerjacks who know how to win and how to hit the bull's eye dead center.

The line on the presidential election next year is strong, odds-on for the Democratic party nominee/candidate, whomever it may be (Harold Stassen?). That has been decidedly constant just as knowing who the D nominee will be has been constant. JEB, Walker, Rubio....whomever may be the sitting duck on the R side...Ted Cruz, whoever, is a goner.

Still, I'd prefer to see JEB as the hapless nominee, or Walker as the nominee fumble his way to election day November 8th 2016, than to see the dynamic and appealing Sen Marco Rubio lose respectably thereby setting himself up for 2020.

[Publicus]

Seriously ... do many people really think he even has a reasonable shot at the nomination?

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

With all the personal attacks being thrown at him on this thread, it would seem the participants here are worried.

If he isn't a threat, why not simply ignore him?

It could be because his launch speech was so nasty against Hillary. He also insulted all older Americans to suggest that just being young means you have the answers for the future and just because you're older means you don't. The truth is it's about the person and their experience.

Rubio has style, brains, charisma, but in maturity he is still the president of his junior year class in high school. He was impressive yesterday as you note in particular, but he simultaneously flipped off a core voting group of the Republican party, those aged 59 and older.

We know almost all of 'em vote and they consistently give the edge to Republicans. Rubio risks throwing this away. Or he's figuring the retired will continue to believe the R party is best for them in economics and finance even if the kid running for prez is rambunctious, intemperate, rude, noisy and sometimes shits the bed.

Rubio wants to attract more young voters to the Republican party and he's the guy to do it, if it can be done. Hispanics too. But the generational warfare is self-defeating and therefore leads nowhere unless his pollsters see something in this nasty approach that might not otherwise be apparent.

It is fact the Democratic party with its most statistically reliable and thorough pollsters over the years has polled the electorate on HRC for pres and it is a definite A-OK, all systems go straight and true ahead. Maybe Rubio's pollsters had found something in the generational warfare stuff, cause we know Rs do the warfare stuff all the time, always. But even if he might have something there to run with, Rubio risks burying one vitally important body of voters while simultaneously digging a very deep hole looking for but some small number of youth gold, cause with his and his party's views, that's all he'd get.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Publicus

[bendejo]

It could be because his launch speech was so nasty against Hillary. He also insulted all older Americans to suggest that just being young means you have the answers for the future and just because you're older means you don't. The truth is it's about the person and their experience.

JT, your post made me think of the 1968 movie "Wild in the Streets." He's young enough to take hip-hop seriously.

I agree, in his announcement he got too ugly too soon. He usually comes off as a likeable fellow in interviews, but it looks like he's turning into Santorum.

But if he really wants the youth vote maybe his team should start the rumor that he's related to Selena Gomez.

[bendejo]

Personality-wise, Marco is the only one, from either party, that comes off like a human being. Well, he did until Monday. If he were a Dem he could have had th mo' that Obama did eight years ago and causing Hillary to have migraines. He could have been Jimmy Smitts in West Wing.

Cruz is the DA who will do anything to get a conviction.

Rand Paul, well, there's something 'Norman Bates' about him.

Hillary has been taking humilty lessons, let's see how that plays out.

If by some miracle Marco carries the primaries, there is no way the party is going to let him through with his immigration stance, the way they forced Mitt to spit on his own greatest political achievement, health care.

[Jingthing]

Marco Rubio.

Anti-gay bigot.

He wants the youth vote?

A demographic that now rejects his regressive social views?

Buena suerte.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/04/14/family-is-important-to-marco-rubio-just-not-gay-families/?hpid=z3

Yet, there is no mystery what the former Florida House speaker and current freshman senator thinks. And it’s awful.
...

“But yesterday is over, and we are never going back,” Rubio said in announcing his bid for the presidency. “We Americans are proud of our history, but our country has always been about the future.” That’s interesting coming from a man whose exclusionary view of family is mired in 1950s idealism. With 59 percent of the nation supporting marriage equality, Rubio is seeking to lead a nation that left his view of family behind years ago.

“Before us now is the opportunity to author the greatest chapter yet in the amazing story of America,” Rubio said. Very true. But for LGBT Americans and the people who care about them, Rubio must not be that writer.

[jamesjohnsonthird]

Busted already.

He's been caught telling porkies like Brian Williams and OReilley.

Telling everybody that his heroic parents fled Cuba/Castro during the revolution when in fact they left Cuba long before Castro came to power.

A community organiser that never held a real job.

[stevenl]

Seriously ... do many people really think he even has a reasonable shot at the nomination?

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

With all the personal attacks being thrown at him on this thread, it would seem the participants here are worried.

If he isn't a threat, why not simply ignore him?

The vast majority of cryticism here is of his views, the vast majority of the attacks on Clinton are on her person.

[Scott]

I have nothing against Rubio. He is quite articulate.

I am waiting for Neversure to run; now that's someone I could vote for!

[Ulysses G.]

Rubio has style, brains, charisma, but in maturity he is still the president of his junior year class in high school. He was impressive yesterday as you note in particular, but he simultaneously flipped off a core voting group of the Republican party, those aged 59 and older.

He did not turn off anyone I know. It was obvious that the old person with old ideas that he was talking about is HILLARY and he has a valid point. Old people are quite happy to vote for young people as intelligent, articulate and accomplished as Marco Rubio.

[NeverSure]

A problem I have with most of the named candidates is that they've never run a business. They don't know where money comes from. They've never had to meet a payroll or make a profit. To them the government is an endless fount of money to fund "good ideas."

They went to school, then college, then law school, maybe worked a stint as an attorney and then went into politics. Rubio was a Florida State politician at about age 25 after graduating from law school.

These guys' educations aren't broad in the experience level. What's a degree in political science? What's a law degree when it comes to wisdom born of real world experience?

I'm afraid that this will be another popularity contest.

[Publicus]

Too many of the Republican party grandmothers comfortable in their light blue hair watch Fox after they get back home from their weekly meetings of Daughters of the American Revolution, or after the right wing Republican grannies up in the Ozarks adjust their remote to Faux.

The only three "Hispanics" in the Senate, Republicans Rubio, Cruz, and the D Robert Under Indictment Menendez, are Cuban. Anyone connected to these respective communities knows Latin Americans have always considered the Cubans as elitist and as ideologues whose ideations are wild and out of contact with their everyday lives. Hence, the appeal of any one or all three of 'em is limited among Hispanic voters in the US.

Cruz for instance lost the Hispanic vote in Texas to his D opponent by 20 percentage points. Rubio got only 55 percent of Hispanic/Cuban voters in his election to the Senate in 2010. Prez Obama meanwhile got 71 percent of the Hispanic vote nationally in 2012.

[chuckd]

I'm 77 years old. I hardly felt insulted when he was describing Hillary as being out of touch with the younger world.

You know, the Hillary that said..."When we left the White House we were dead broke", and by her own admission hasn't driven a car since 1996.

That's the one who is out of touch with reality.

[Ulysses G.]

Seriously ... do many people really think he even has a reasonable shot at the nomination?

I think he has a good shot at the nomination and a good shot at beating Hillary. So far, this guy seems like the real deal as a formidable candidate in the John Kennedy vein.

[jamesjohnsonthird]

Cracks me up.

The conservatives trying to convince us a community organiser that never held a real job is "the real deal."

[zydeco]

About the only way that Clinton would look good next Rubio is for her to have a head transplant. Maybe she ought to ask Gwyneth Paltrow?

[Publicus]

Maybe Marco's cheerleader wife can wave and bounce her pom poms while the erect Marco struts Hail To The Chief by the Marine Corps Band.

Then after Marco's eight years erect in the White House his wife too can be elected prez as many future first ladies might be expected to seriously consider.

Interesting times and developments these are.

[Ulysses G.]

Cracks me up.

The conservatives trying to convince us a community organiser that never held a real job is "the real deal.

Marco Rubio was never a community organizer - don't believe everything you read on the Internet - and he has had numerous real jobs as well as lots of government experience, including being House Speaker of the Florida legislature. There is no legitimate comparison between him and the failure currently occupying the White House, other than running at a young age.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Ulysses G.

[jamesjohnsonthird]

Cracks me up.

The conservatives trying to convince us a community organiser that never held a real job is "the real deal.":cheesy:

Marco Rubio was never a community organizer - don't believe everything you read on the Internet - and he has had numerous real jobs as well as lots of government experience, including being House Speaker of the Florida legislature. There is no legitimate comparison between him and the failure currently occupying the White House.

Funny.

[jamesjohnsonthird]

The guy can't be trusted.

Rubio's previous statements that his parents were forced to leave Cuba in 1959, after Fidel Castro came to power, were incorrect. Fabricated nonsense to get votes.

His parents left Cuba in 1956.

Rubio's "embellishments" resonated with many voters in Florida in his campaign.

[Ulysses G.]

Marco Rubio was born in 1971, long after his family arrived in America. He told the story that they told him. which was apparently off by a couple of years. Big deal.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Ulysses G.

[chuckd]

So now the criticism rages from how Rubio's wife looks, to how she drives, to whether Rubio told the absolute truth as to the heritage of his parents?

My only question is...What difference, at this point, does it make?