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Rubio: old and new — 21 Comments

1. I remember my qualms about Rubio were over his support for the faulty immigration bill. He has performed magnificently as SoS.

2. One of Trump’s less endearing traits is the malicious nicknames. OK, if he really believes Hilary is Crooked, that fits. (Who doesn’t believe Hilary, Bill and the Foundation are not crooked.) Low energy Jeb was OK because it was more funny than mean. But little Marco was mean. What was it supposed to convey?

3. I think he would be a better choice for the Prez nomination that JD.
   In the 8 yrs, he has grown and matured into a formable leader.

4. Rubio, to me, was always likable. In fact, I remember when he was doing that speech when he tried to “sneak” a drink of water.

   link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19ZxJVnM5Gs

   OMG! I felt so sorry for him as he was trying to be discrete and it only made it look worse. But, he did laugh about it a few times afterwards.

5. In the past he needed more seasoning. In this season of The Apprentice he’s the runaway leader.

6. Immigration is more important than foreign policy, and foreign policy can be downstream of it. A bad position on immigration makes good foreign policy much harder, if not pointless, as we discussed here just four days ago. A President needs to work for the interests of Americans at home as well as abroad.

   Rubio’s doing fine in his current role, why risk promoting him to one where he won’t? I think James Buchanan was the last Secretary of State to serve as President, and Hillary Clinton the most recent one to aspire to it.

7. Then again, maybe Trump never disliked Rubio at all and the name-calling was just his usual tactic of insulting his rivals.

   Now that we have Gen Z coming into our adult population, we have several generations comprising most of our adults, who have grown up in a media saturated environment. Long ago, my brother, who worked in the media, though mostly print media, commented that he thought that Gen X would be very savvy about famous people fabricating a persona for media consumption.

   It turns out that there was/is a craving among the younger generations for authenticity. But really, they want the appearance of authenticity. To be fair, how does one tell which is real and which isn’t?

   So my main point: Any smart person today with a substantial media footprint will have a fabricated persona. Especially Trump.

   It is true that the essence of the real person can leak out into the world intentionally or unintentionally, on occasion. But it is rare, which is why watching most media events is now so boring. It’s also why it was so fascinating when Hunter Biden lost his laptop to an unsympathetic store owner. The real unvarnished truth was available to those willing to look past the obfuscation spin.

8. Rubio seemed to moderate, maybe it was his immigration stance. I suspect now he would have a stance more in line with Trump.

   I like Vance but we need to end the Islamic Republic now. Trump’s doing what’s needed, I doubt Vance would.

   That said I think both men are learning from Trump.

9. I already confessed that I underestimated Rubio. I mean seriously underestimated.
   I think the 2028 Primary season will be one for the ages. I assume Rubio, Vance and DeSantis. Win, win, win.
   If I were to bet, I would put Rubio in the lead at the moment, even though DeSantis certainly has a great record as Governor. It probably depends on where the problems are at the time. Rubio would seem to have the edge on world affairs, and DeSantis on Executive ability and managment of an economy. Vance needs some high profile achievements or he will be odd man out.

10. Any smart person today with a substantial media footprint will have a fabricated persona. Especially Trump.

    TommyJay:

    I will cavil on Trump. He is practically real-time in the public eye, while maintaining consistency and humor. If he were behaving according to a fabricated self, it seems to me the deception would break down and we would have noticed by now.
    ________________________________

    The problem with lying is that you have to keep track of which lies you told to whom.

    –Unknown
    ________________________________

    That’s what we see with Democrats, even most politicians. They are constantly calculating their responses through their fabricated-self filter and it shows.

    With Trump we see something immediate and unvarnished. It ain’t always pretty but it does seem authentic.

    Or maybe Trump is a fiendishly clever lizard-person!

11. TommyJay:

    It’s true that Trump often says and does things for effect or for specific tactical reasons.

    But I agree with huxley that the self he projects is unusually authentic, especially for a politician.

12. I liked Rubio’s politics and would have happily voted for him, but his delivery always sounded whiny to me. He no longer sounds whiny at all, just strong and confident. May he be our next president.

13. @ Oldflyer > “I think the 2028 Primary season will be one for the ages. I assume Rubio, Vance and DeSantis. Win, win, win.”
    I’m not placing any bets; you are right that events will determine who is going to be the right person in the right place at primary time.

    IMO, Trump’s 2016 “Little Marco” sobriquet referred more to Rubio’s age than his size, and yes it was part of the MMA name-calling that none of his rivals or the MSM ever seemed to be able to understand and shoot back at him*. Cruz got past it very quickly to focus on policies they agreed on (and Trump had treated him especially badly, IMO because he was a serious rival), and looks like Rubio and a few others have as well.
    The others are the favorites of Bulwark and the Democrats.

    *Cue Salena Zito’s insight that Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally, and his opponents (which extend far beyond the Democrats and the media) take him literally but not seriously.

    The Iranian mulluhs, and Maduro, apparently didn’t take him literally OR seriously.
    I wonder if the South American drug cartels are paying attention?

14. I agree the Trump is authentic. He’s a showman for sure, but he’s being himself.

15. Chris Christie was absolutely repulsive during those debates and in the 2016 primaries. In his speech during the 2016 GOP convention he spent his time praising and talking about his favorite topic which was naturally himself. I sure hope he is the nominee as I will not vote for JD Vance the cretin who allows his wife to insulted by incel gay neo Nazis such as Nick Fuentes and gives a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day in which he never once says the word “Jews” or “Jewish”.

16. gives a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day in which he never once says the word “Jews” or “Jewish”.

    Josh Shapiro also did not use the words “Jew” or “Jewish” in his X post on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Perhaps he’s an antisemite.

    As for “allowing” Fuentes to insult his wife, you do realize Vance has no power to suppress Fuentes’ speech or imprison him for lese majeste afterward, right?

    Vice President J.D. Vance arrived at the Dachau concentration camp under low, gray clouds. He climbed out of his armored Suburban SUV and approached the stucco and cement gatehouse, gravel crunching underfoot. Waiting for Vance beneath a low arch, in front of a gate that had the words arbeit macht frei set into its ironwork, was Abba Naor, a survivor of the camp.

    Over the course of the next 80 minutes, Vance, 40, toured the site with Naor, 97, at his side. In the first room of the memorial’s main exhibition building, a large map displayed the network of Nazi concentration camps that existed at the height of World War II. Gesturing to the map, Naor showed Vance his hometown of Kaunas, Lithuania, and described the route by which he arrived at Dachau in 1944, via the Stutthof concentration camp. On the way, he was separated from his mother and younger brother, who were sent to Auschwitz. “The moment I saw my mother and brother heading toward the train, I realized that was it,” Naor told Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial. “I could say ‘goodbye’ forever.” At Auschwitz, and at other death camps like Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzec, 6 million Jews—2 of every 3 in Europe—were killed.

    In the next room, where arriving prisoners were processed, Naor showed Vance the identity card he had been given when he came to Dachau. Naor was dispatched to perform slave labor in the network of Dachau’s 140 subcamps. Dachau wasn’t created to exterminate Jews: the Nazis opened it in 1933, soon after Hitler took power, and among the first held there were Communists, Social Democrats, and other political opponents. Of the more than 200,000 people who passed through Dachau, more than 40,000 died. “The subcamps, this was our problem,” Naor tells TIME the day after his visit with Vance. “The people couldn’t stay long alive.” But Naor did, surviving a death march until he was finally liberated by American troops after his captors fled. “This is something you never forget,” Naor says. “I told [Vance] it was Japanese Americans who liberated us. He was happy to hear this.”

    Vance emerged from the camp’s museum with his wife Usha and made his way toward a memorial. A wreath of ever-green branches, accented with white roses, lay propped nearby, with a red, white, and blue ribbon reading “We remember” on one end and “United States of America” on the other. Vance and his wife picked up the wreath and placed it in front of the memorial. Vance prayed briefly and crossed himself. He adjusted the end of the wreath reading we remember so that it was visible.

    Then he walked to a large wall nearby, which bore the words “Never Again” in several languages. Vance thanked Naor for sharing his story. “I really am really moved by this site,” Vance said to the assembled media and officials of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. “While it is, of course, a place of unspeakable atrocity and terror and evil, it’s very important that it’s here, and it’s very important that those of us who are lucky enough to be alive can walk around, can know what happened here, and commit ourselves to prevent it from happening again.”

17. Vance praying at the Wailing Wall, like groypers do.

18. Rubio had Senator disease early on, but seems to have found his philosophical footing. I’ve been very impressed. It’s a pleasure to have a spokesman who avoids both extremes, mush-mouthing and gaffe machine. He knows why he holds his opinions and can say so.

    I’m guessing he doesn’t care if he’s invited to all the right cocktail parties.

19. Nick:

    That was JD in 2022 before Liar Tuck went, (what describes his fall?) for full demonic possession.

20. I like Vance, but he’s lacking in the bona fides that Rubio and DeSantis have. I’ll vote for any of them, but my personal favorite as of now is Rubio.

    I do wish Vance would distance himself (sincerely) from the insane Carlson.

21. Speaking from Britain, I wish we had a bench a quarter as strong.
    I was all in for Vance after he told the Eurocrats a few home truths, but Rubio is formidable and getting better and, of course, De Santis is excellent!

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