Yes, Rubio sucks at this
by digby
I got a lot of blowback for writing that Rubio was making a mistake in attacking Cruz on immigration, essentially saying that Cruz is just as bad he is on the issue. To me that seems well … kind of dumb.
Bottom line: Rubio is the establishment choice at the moment but he’s getting nowhere fast because he’s running a lethargic campaign that just isn’t very good. And it’s not getting any better. Apparently he’s decided that the best way to make people forget his immigration apostasy, when he joined with Democrats on the notorious Gang of 8 to hammer out a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill, is to draw as much attention to it as possible by picking a losing fight with Ted Cruz. He seems to think that aggressively accusing his rival of abandoning his conservative principles in the same way he did will somehow make his own betrayal go away.
All it’s accomplished is to make every conservative in the land think even less of him than they did before.
Mark Levin, anti-immigrant zealot, seems to agree.
Rubio blunders by highlighting immigration; his disastrous Gang of 8 role puts him at complete odds with Cruz &… https://t.co/UIRzqAukaA— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) December 21, 2015
That story by Byron York at the Washington Examiner lays it all out. Rubio’s signature achievement as a Senator was the Gang of Eight’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill. He cannot run away from it so he’s trying to drag Cruz into the mud with him. Conservatives know better. Cruz is anti-immigrant from way back, despite his father being an immigrant himself, all everything he did during that legislative process was in service of tanking the CIR.
And yes, Rubio is daft for drawing so much attention to this. It only makes everyone pore over both records even more closely and he doesn’t benefit from that.
The Holiday fundraiser continues and I hope you’ll consider throwing a little something in the kitty.
Happy Hollandaise everyone!
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