Marco Rubio - U.S. Senate - 2010

Human Events
Rubio vs. the RINOs
By Elisabeth Meinecke
9/30/2009

Don’t tell Marco Rubio his primary race for the U.S. senate against Florida Gov. Charlie Crist depends on money or endorsements. Rubio, who finished his term as Florida’s Speaker of the House in 2008, is focused on a much bigger picture: limiting government and thus liberating American entrepreneurship.

The impetus behind his campaign is that same wave of conservative outrage which carried Tea Party protesters to Washington and put Rubio’s race in the national spotlight. His race is about message (adherence to conservative principles), and, as Rubio says, the only amount of money he needs is the money to get that message out.

“I think all politics are about the grassroots. And the question is, do you work with the grassroots or manipulate the grassroots?” Rubio told HUMAN EVENTS in an exclusive interview last week. “Most campaigns try to manipulate the grassroots by raising so much money that they can kind of create false excitement…My campaign’s not based on that.”

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“I think next year’s elections, especially in the Republican primaries, are going to be a lot like a political Halloween,” Rubio said. “A lot of people are going to come dressed to the party like conservatives, but in fact, in the real…world, they haven’t been that, not in a principled way.”

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Rubio pointed out that Florida’s unemployment rate is still the highest it’s been since 1975 (10.7% in August, 10.8% in July versus the 11% in 1975). Rubio said the stimulus is like giving sugar or candy bar to a kid — you get that initial rush of energy that is ultimately unsustainable.

“The only enduring legacy of this stimulus will be the deficit it’s left us with,” Rubio said. “I don’t care how much money he raises — he will never convince Florida Republicans that the stimulus package and his embrace of it, and his campaigning in favor of it — hand in hand with the president — was a good thing for Florida, a good thing for their children, or a good thing for our country”

Rubio is frank in his assessment of why Crist went along with the stimulus at the time: Obama was popular.

“I think he supported the stimulus package because Barack Obama was popular at the time, and I think he supported it because he didn’t want to have a budget session in Tallahassee where he had to make difficult decisions — which, quite frankly, is reflective of everything that’s wrong in American politics today,” Rubio said. “We have too many people that just want to be popular.”

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