Rubio's "Never Trump" Line For The Nominee He Vows To Support
"He has spent a career of convincing Americans that he's something that he's not in exchange for their money. Now he's trying to do the same in exchange for their country."
That was Marco Rubio, speaking of Donald Trump in Thursday's GOP debate. But if you didn't hear Rubio say this, you might think it was someone else talking about...Marco Rubio.
Think about it. Those who have endorsed Rubio have been stumped to point out why, failing to be able to highlight a single accomplishment to back up their support. That's because Marco Rubio is a walking, talking, narrative. He's a myth. He's also what he claims Donald Trump is (and rightfully so): A con artist.
This isn't a new thing with Rubio. When he was running for his Senate seat in 2010, there were examples everywhere.
For instance, he tried to appeal to Hispanics while at the same time supporting "English only" policies, but not the Dream Act, so he put out an add in Spanish for heavily populated Hispanic areas that conveniently left those things out, and merely touted his own "American Dream" narrative.
There was his "both sides" tap dance around the BP oil spill.
He sold himself as a Tea Party man, yet scored an endorsement nod from Dick Cheney, and scored lots of cash from Wall Street.
There were also those undisclosed expenses, financial disclosure, foreclosure, and credit card problems.
Yet in spite of it all, his con worked and he wound up in the U.S. Senate.
Once he got there, he promptly stopped doing his job and went to work preparing for a future Presidential run by traveling outside the country to make speeches, writing books, and spent most of the rest of his time fundraising. For his trouble, he earned the worst voting record in the Senate, which only got worse when he announced his 2016 run.
Fast forward to the present day Rubio, who has honed his con game practices to an art form. For all the talk of Rubio seeming to be a robot who's been programmed by people behind the scenes, we now know that isn't far off base, nor merely confined to his canned speeches.
Bloomberg reports today that every step of the way in Rubio's campaign since 2014 has been carefully choreographed by a consulting firm in Washington, right down to Rubio's schoolyard jokes about Trump's spray tan and the size of his...hands, and which venues to tell them in. It was no mistake recently that, in the space of just days, Rubio campaign rallies went from "very serious policy" discussions to frat boy penis jokes, and back again to the issues just hours later. And while we've become accustomed in Florida to only seeing Rubio when he turned up on FOX, this was also all part of the plan to keep him away from one on one events with voters, and confined to Rubio-friendly free media only:
By fall, the 0ptimus research repeatedly showed that media coverage consistently reached more voters than ads. Decisions about where to place Rubio as a guest could now be intelligently guided, toward local television stations with disproportionately Republican audiences, and again and again to friendly interviewers on Fox & Friends.
Rubio doesn't do well unscripted, as viewers saw in his earlier debates when he was attacked by Chris Christie, and promptly proved the point by repeating the same talking points word for word several times over, so it makes sense that this plan would work, on paper. However, at some point, if a candidate wants to appeal to voters and win an election, one has to appear human. This is one area that has indeed tripped Rubio up. Sure, it worked for a while, enough so he won a Senate race, but years of absenteeism both in Washington and back here at home in Florida have worn the shine off the Rubio facade. Rubio thought he could take the easy way out right into the Oval Office and it hasn't worked. He isn't unpopular in Florida (much less the rest of the country) for no reason. And while he may be telling media friendly audiences he'll win in his home state, the polls say otherwise. Here, as in other areas, the Rubio con job fails him again.
During Thursday's debate, Rubio easily illustrated that he's almost as big a con artist as Donald Trump is. Early on Rubio said that he wasn't going to attack Trump, and he didn't until recently. After a couple of weeks of saying Trump was a con man and saying he would be a certain disaster as President (and rightfully so), this happened:
Gentlemen, this is the last question of the night. It has been a long time since our first debate, seven months ago in Cleveland. A lot has transpired since then, obviously, including an RNC pledge that all of you signed agreeing to support the party's nominee and not to launch an independent run. Tonight, in 30 seconds, can you definitively say you will support the Republican nominee, even if that nominee is Donald J. Trump?
Senator Rubio, yes or no?
RUBIO: I'll support the Republican nominee.
BAIER: Mr. Trump? Yes or no?
RUBIO: I'll support Donald if he's the Republican nominee.
Pay no attention to anything I have said before, I will indeed support Trump as our nominee!
Never mind that Rubio said all those bad things about Trump.
Never mind all the bad things Trump himself has said, like Mexicans are drug dealers and rapists, that he hedges when asked if he'll disavow the KKK and David Duke, or that he pretends not to know much about the white supremacists who are supporting him and making robocalls for him in primary states.
Never mind that Trump says anyone who disagrees with him should be "roughed up," while he has students thrown out of his rallies simply for standing silently while black.
Never mind that there is routine violence at his rallies on a regular basis, cheered on by mob-like supporters.
Never mind that he proposes commiting war crimes, calls for killing the families of terrorists, or censoring the media, and numerous other things that up until now were unthinkable coming from polite members of society, much less presidential candidates.
Forget all that! These qualities are something Rubio favors in a presidential nominee. Sign him up!
Oh, and while you're at it, stop by Rubio's web page and throw wads of money at him while his dying campaign continues to fundraise off his "Never Trump" line of merchandise.
And never mind that, even though he promised to support Trump last night, today he was back to telling people what a disaster Trump is, and that voters should really just rally around Rubio instead.
Because the con never ends for Marco Rubio. Or at least it hasn't yet.
Just give him a couple more weeks.
