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How does the RNC solve a problem like Trump? — 44 Comments

1. The Democrats know how to do this: Bernie wins the popular vote but Hillary gets the super delegates. “We know what is best for you.”

2. If time is of the essence, and I suppose precisely that, then Sen. Rubio had ought to have long past been getting busy apologizing for his one major error, rather than, as he has been, attempting to dissemble it into nothingness, while smearing a decent man withal. So imagine my surprise — and it is a surprise in truth — that Sen. Marco becomes more loathsome to me as time passes, rather than less, when I had fully expected he would have learned to make himself more appealing, and learned it with ease.

3. Neo:
   “How does the RNC solve a problem like Trump?”

   They can’t.

   Only conservatives organized collectively as activists to play the activist game in earnest, and thereby empower themselves also to equip the GOP and hold the GOP accountable, have a chance to fix it. Or perhaps they had a chance.

   Excerpt from a comment I made here in September:

   Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance is correct that the solution to Trump’s campaign strategy is to “attend first to denying him a reason to exist”.

   However, there’s no way for GOP candidates to implement that recommended solution by conventional means within the election setting.

   Republicans in government are pretty much strapped by the checks within government and more so, in tandem, the checks surrounding elected officials from without. They’re constrained from the recommended solution, thus their appearance to populist conservatives of “operate like Quisling, govern like Vichy”.

   Once again, the activist game is the only social cultural/political game there is.

   The only way to implement the recommended solution to Trump’s campaign is for GOP-loyal conservatives to undertake a Right-activist Gramscian march that seizes the spectrum of checks that surround government. Then save the GOP by involving (and equipping) their favorite GOP candidates in the greater American reformation that’s led by Right activists.

   Note, the recommended solution only works if the GOP is subordinate to a greater conservative activist movement. It fails if conservatives repeat the Tea Party error of self-neutralizing by seeking entry into the constrained GOP.

   The basic problem is conservatives who double as Republicans have chosen to eschew activism. The Trump campaign, with an activist team, has exploited the market inefficiency.

   The solution to the Trump phenomenon has required dedicated activism, counter-activism all along, which has been absent by conservative choice. Even now, with events clarified, many conservatives and Republicans insist on limiting their conception to a traditional electoral frame rather than the activist game afoot.

4. Eric:

   Yes, HAD a chance.

   We’re talking about now. My last paragraph deals with the way that Trump could be defeated, and the Republicans have at least a good chance to be victorious in the general, for the present election cycle. It is not a long-term solution.

   I am not sure that Trump actually would run third-party. Not at all sure. Also, if he did, I’m not sure how much of the vote he would pull under those circumstances. It could be like Perot in 1992, who apparently ending up pulling about equally from both sides (I think Trump would pull more from the GOP, but it might be voters who don’t usually vote, so the other GOP candidate might be able to pull it out anyway).

   The long-term solutions are very different, as you point out. I’m talking about short-term.

5. sdferr:

   Cruz and Rubio are smearing each other. It’s sort of equal in that way: Liar liar pants on fire! Politics, unfortunately, on both sides.

   I have seen Rubio say that he made an error. Perhaps not abjectly enough for you? But he’s done it: here, here. Please read the latter (by Byron York) in its entirety, but here are some excerpts (and note that York is saying that Rubio told him the reason he supported the Gang of 8—to head off Obama’s even more extreme efforts—at the time the bill was being considered, not just as some sort of after-the-fact revisionist history):

   In 2013, as [Rubio] worked feverishly to pass the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., admitted to having one big worry. If it didn’t pass, Rubio – one of the bill’s primary authors – said he feared President Obama would simply use executive authority to give legal status to millions of currently illegal immigrants.

   “Here’s my big worry,” Rubio told me during an interview while the bill was making its way through the Senate. “I fear that if this thing fails, the president will basically say to anyone in the U.S. who has been here more than three years, who has not committed a serious crime…he’ll say, ‘We’ll do for you what we did for the DREAM kids.’ And the problem with that will be you will have 10 million people legalized in the United States by executive order, so that when there is a new president, if it is a conservative, a Republican, one of the first decisions they will have to make is whether to yank that status from those people and deport them. I cannot imagine a scenario where a future president is going to take away the status they’re going to get. I believe it’s what [Obama] will do. Maybe not all 10 million, but he’ll do it for six million.”

   …Now, Rubio freely admits his approach to immigration reform simply could not work. There were all sorts of things many Republicans found objectionable in the Gang of Eight bill, but just one proved to be an absolutely insurmountable obstacle.

   The obstacle was this: The Gang of Eight would have given millions of illegal immigrants legal status before the measure’s tough enforcement provisions were in place and running.

   …Last August, when [Rubio] had time to analyze what went wrong, he told me, “The fundamental impediment to making progress on immigration is that people in this country, a large number of Americans and their elected representatives in Congress, do not believe that, no matter what you put in the law, they don’t believe the federal government will enforce it.”

   Rubio said the Gang of Eight failure taught him that security and enforcement measures – border security, E-verify, visa control – would have to be not just voted into law, not just funded, but actually completed and functioning before legalization could be considered.

   “Once it’s in place, and people see that it is working and is actually being applied, then I think people would be willing to have a serious and responsible conversation about how to address the millions of people who are here illegally,” Rubio said. “But they’re not willing to do that until they know that the illegal immigration problem is under control.”

   You may or may not agree with him, but this is consistent and is exactly what I found though looking at interviews Rubio gave at the time. He has explained it over and over. You either believe it or you don’t, but he certainly said it.

6. I don’t.

7. “According to most polls, Trump will lose to a Democratic nominee.”

   Those polls assume the same democrat turnout as in 2012. They assume that Sander’s young, idealistic voters will knowingly vote for a corrupt Clinton. They assume that Sander’s supporters will not stay home or vote 3rd party.

   “Lots of principled conservatives will stay home or vote 3rd party.”

   The ONLY “principled conservatives” are Cruz’s supporters because, once their records and behavior are considered, a principled conservative cannot support Trump over Cruz or Rubio over Cruz.

   But someone please explain how a principled conservative staying home or voting 3rd party in reaction to Trump as the nominee is different than a Cruz or Trump supporter stating the same, if Rubio is nominated?

   Whether Trump, Cruz or Rubio… how is staying home or voting for a third party… not, essentially a vote for Clinton?

   Digging even deeper; someone explain how McConnell and Reid differ? What differentiates McConnell from Rubio? What differentiates Reid from Clinton?

   Of course they do differ somewhat, I’m sure they vote differently, at least 10% of the time.

   We know what we’ll have with Clinton, Biden or Sanders. We know what we’ll have with Rubio (McConnell/Boehner/Ryan).

   We don’t know what we’ll have with Trump. But probably a mix of some good and a lot of bad.

   Only Cruz will even attempt to return America to Constitutional governance. A path that both the democrats and the GOPe view as anathema.

   That only one candidate is dedicated to constitutional governance tells us all we need know about the overall state of the American public.

   The ship is lost because the passengers have lost their ‘rudder’ (Constitutional governance). That half the American public still support Barack Obama, that 44% of republicans do not believe that the GOP has betrayed them, that a third of republican voters support a charlatan/snake oil salesman, while another 22% support a man who has proven his duplicity and that only 22% of South Carolina’s voters want Cruz as their first choice conclusively demonstrates just how lost is America.

   “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” – Abraham Lincoln

   In the aggregate, America’s culture has already been destroyed and, as politics follow culture, our politics are a perfect reflection of our degraded, morally bankrupt culture.

   There are only left, islands of principled conservatives, clinging to what once was, amid a sea of lost souls, cast adrift from any moral or reasoned anchor.

   Like the roman empire, such a society, resting upon former accomplishments may last a bit longer but it cannot survive because it has lost the ethical/moral consensus necessary to national survival.

8. My sense is that the Trump people do want to tear the GOP, as well as the Washington establishment, apart and start fresh. They may well get their wish no matter whether Trump wins the nomination or runs third party. The problem is that most of them have no sense of history. They could not answer this essential question: “how many times after an established order was overthrown has the next iteration been an improvement?”

   Rubio has done nothing to gain my confidence. He is beginning to sound like a whiner. Cruz, and Trump, have taken him off of his game. O’Reilly seemed to tie him in knots on the immigration issue last night (yes, I did watch that segment.). I think Rubio was trying to make decent points, but let O’Reilly talk over him to the point that they were lost. If you cannot handle O’Reilly’s bluster, you have a problem.

   Cruz takes no prisoners. He stated to O’Reilly that he would indeed deport everyone who is here illegally; it is the law of the land. I admire his candor, even though I do not think it always serves him well.

   Tom Ridge was out this morning saying he thinks Kasich can win it; and expects him to stay the course.

   The whole process is becoming a nightmare.

9. sdferr:

   I believe it maybe 70%, which is good enough for me. I understand having reservations (I do, too), but I can explain why I believe it. It’s logical in terms of an explanation; it makes sense, and is coherent, and conforms to what I remember happening at the time, the atmosphere and the fears about Obama. Rubio said it at the time, too, which is very important for me. He has consistently said it since. I think it holds together both logically and emotionally.

   You don’t believe it, but why—other than that you’re mad at Rubio and don’t trust him. Or is that the reason?

   By the way, Rubio also said at the time that he wanted the Republican-controlled House to make it more conservative (remember that at the time the Democrats were in charge of the Senate). I linked to some interviews about that the other day, interviews that go back in time to when the bill was being considered.

   Think about it—if Obama was going to do it himself, this all made sense to try to put a somewhat better system in place, given a Democratic Senate and GOP House, in order to head Obama off at the pass. It seemed reasonable at the time.

10. I agree with Rubio. Secure the border for at least three years, then let’s debate what to do about the illegals who remain. In three years with a secure border there cdould be a lot of criminal illegals deported – and they couldn’t just come back, the way they do now. We would be rid of a lot of our problem illegals in three years.

    The illegals from Mexico and other Spanish speaking countries work primarily in four industries – agriculture, meat/poultry processing, construction, and the hotel/motel/housekeeping business.

    Most of the workers in agriculture cannot be easily replaced because there are few Americans who want to work only seasonal ag jobs. The other industries’ jobs are year around, and with improved wages, Americans would be willing to take most of them. That would raise the cost of their products, but that is the tradeoff for more jobs for citizens.

    The issue of allowing green cards could, IMO, be handled on an industry by industry basis. Example: If you’re illegal and work construction, you can’t have a green card. We will help you return to your home country, but if you don’t leave on your own, you will be deported.

    On the other hand there is the issue of anchor babies. How do we treat illegals with children who were born in the USA? Green card the parents? Split them up by deporting the parents Deport the whole family? It’s a huge mess that will not be easy to solve. But the first step is to SECURE the Border. That will restore trust in the government.

11. Geoffrey Britain:

    My opinion is that nothing will galvanize Democrats who are lukewarm to Clinton (or even dislike her) to go out and vote for her like a Trump candidacy. They will vote against him rather than for her, but they will vote.

    Trump will motivate Democrats to vote—for her. So he will increase Democratic turnout—for her. He will also depress Republican turnout, in my opinion, because the people who usually don’t vote at all and who now support him and will come out and vote for him are outnumbered, I believe, by the Republicans who will stay home rather than vote for him.

    The following is the difference between those on the right who’ll stay home and not vote if Rubio is the nominee versus those who’ll stay home and not vote if Trump is the nominee.

    Rubio is a conservative in everything but immigration, where he is a moderate. If staying home rather than voting for him is a vote for Hillary (which it is), those people are giving up a fully conservative president who is BETTER than she on immigration in order to allow Hillary, who is worse on every issue than he is, to be elected.

    Trump has no track record in government whatsoever, and his track record as a guy mouthing off (his only track record so far) is all over the place, as liberal or more as it is conservative. His present position on immigration (not the same as his position in various earlier statements over the years) is indeed conservative on immigration, and much more so than Hillary. However, his positions on other things are not reliably anything, and in many cases have been either shifting or as liberal as hers or more. So they can say that immigration may be the only position on which he is better than she, and who knows what he would actually do on it? His history as a human being is deeply flawed as well. Those who refuse to vote for him consider him a lying con man, perhaps a sociopath, and a liberal. They are by no means sure that he would be better than Hillary in most ways, perhaps with the exception of immigration. Some of them think he would be worse on a number of issues, and more unreliable, mercurial, and unbalanced.

    Those are two very different sets of circumstances. You may or may not agree with these people, but their reasons are very different. Why would anyone vote for Trump over Hillary if they didn’t think Trump would be better than she?

12. J.J.:

    That used to be a common position, even among Republicans. It has been my position, because I just don’t think deportation can occur if you really stop to think about it. Stoppage of new illegal immigration, and reduction in legal immigration, is more important. But people have been whipped up into a fever pitch and Trump says what they want to hear. He doesn’t care if he can do it or not. For him it’s a way to power, and he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

13. The attacks between Rubio and Cruz pave the way for the Trump nomination. At best they are fighting for second place. Trump is not going to just self destruct.

    If instead, they were to have a cease-fire and concentrate their attacks on Trump and on their vision for America, they have a chance at taking him down. After that would be time enough to battle each other.

    If only JEB! had spent $150 million exposing Trump instead of wasting it on Rubio we would be much better off now.

14. Oldflyer;

    On the issue of what Cruz actually said in the O’Reilly interview, please see this.

15. Joe:

    Their attacks on each other have a certain logic. Polls show that in a two-man race against Trump, either of them wins the nomination. So each figures if he can just destroy the other, he destroys Trump.

    If Trump really does have a ceiling of support significantly under 50% (and those 2-way polls bear that out), then they are correct. The real problem is that they split the non-Trump vote too equally, so far. One MUST pull ahead significantly for the strategy to work.

    You are right about Jeb. But he had the same strategy, you see.

16. If Sen. Rubio had not continued to prevaricate but rather to have stuck to the one story you find coherent and persuasive neo-neocon, I think I might have noticed him doing that. But I have not. Nor has Sen. Sessions, who I trust rather more on the issue than Sen. Rubio; nor has Sen. Lee, nor has Sen. Cruz who both likewise with Sessions I tend to believe. But prior to Sen. Rubio’s explanations of his ObaZma worries to Mr. York, and which “worries” we are to take as cause — in his actions — what was he doing? Working hand in glove with Barack Obama, Sen. Durbin, and Sen. Schumer to write that bill? Feverishly, even?

    But I had voted Sen. Rubio into office in order that he would do nothing of the sort. He flipped. Perhaps he was naive. (Perhaps I was naive!) Perhaps he was unwise. (Perhaps I was unwise!) Perhaps he was taken in, or fooled by his allies? Perhaps he bit off more than he could chew? There are many possible explanations, surely. I don’t hear those. I hear rather convenient postures that purport to have been taken in my interests, directly contrary to his campaigning undertakings — against some hypothetical ObaZma neverneverland.

    Well no. My understanding of my interests was that Sen. Rubio would work with other constitutionalist Sen’s. like Lee, like Sessions, like Cruz to block every proposal Barack Obama and his crew of wreckers might bring; to seek to persuade other Republican senators to join with them; to make the tea party forces which propelled Sen. Rubio to office stronger and not weaker. Surely not to ally with the worst political influences in modern American politics. Certainly not to ally with the Mitch McConnell’s of the Senate, who wanted nothing more than to see and end to the wholesome tea party sentiments Rubio had purported to embrace.

    Nah. The bill was a disaster. And now? Rubio would have us believe just last week that the bill was on the way to “improvement” in the House! When Rubio wouldn’t raise a finger to improve it in the Senate. Sorry Sen. Rubio, it’s too much.

17. sdferr:

    He has been consistent in what I’ve read, and I’ve read an awful lot. Yes, he was naive—but you might be singing another tune had he failed to try to stop Obama and Obama had gone ahead to give them all amnesty.

    Hindsight is 20/20. Along with Rubio, I thought it was going to happen. And he said at the time that’s why he was doing it.

    I think he tried to stop him. In retrospect it turns out to have been a bad decision, but only in retrospect, IMHO.

18. I don’t believe it takes retrospect to understand that working closely with Schumer, Durbin and Obama isn’t a good idea. Not in any sense. Retrospect? No. Nothing of the sort.

19. Except, Cruz and Rubio can communicate if desired . . .

    THE PRISONERS’ DILEMMA

    BEGIN EXCERPT

    The prisoners’ dilemma is the best-known game of strategy in social science. It helps us understand what governs the balance between cooperation and competition in business, in politics, and in social settings.

    In the traditional version of the game, the police have arrested two suspects and are interrogating them in separate rooms. Each can either confess, thereby implicating the other, or keep silent. No matter what the other suspect does, each can improve his own position by confessing. If the other confesses, then one had better do the same to avoid the especially harsh sentence that awaits a recalcitrant holdout. If the other keeps silent, then one can obtain the favorable treatment accorded a state’s witness by confessing. Thus, confession is the dominant strategy (see game theory) for each. But when both confess, the outcome is worse for both than when both keep silent. The concept of the prisoners’ dilemma was developed by RAND Corporation scientists Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher and was formalized by Albert W. Tucker, a Princeton mathematician.

    END EXCERPT

    http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PrisonersDilemma.html

20. sdferr,
    You can’t overlook the fact that Rubio will have to work with congress. I don’t believe he would do an “I won” on them like Obama. He will have enough other things he wants to accomplish to turn them against him.

    J.J. is right that we need time to show that the borders are secure before we can figure out what to do with the people here. One thing we can be sure of is that the MSM will highlight every poor immigrant who contributes to our country, speaks English, and has kids that get A’s in their AP courses. The total anti-immigration mood will change if people don’t see it getting worse. How can we predict that mood now.

21. sdferr:

    I don’t have time to find the link now, but I read an article on how Rubio did try to improve it in the Senate when it was being drawn up. Do you really think that bill was exactly as it would have been had it been written without GOP input? For example, the whole “trigger” situation probably wouldn’t have been in there.

    And at the time he said he expected the House to tighten it. See this for his interview at the time about it. It’s all consistent; there is no change from then and what he is saying now about his motivations, and I believe it to have been reasonable for the time.

    As for working with Schumer et all, yes, that’s the way the Senate operates or nothing gets done. And let me remind you of the reason Rubio wanted something to get done on this issue: he thought it would happen anyway and be much worse, with Obama doing it himself. This bill was better than that, so he decided to do some compromising. The Democrats controlled the entire process at the time, so working with them was what Rubio had to do.

    That’s not naive, it’s realistic. I repeat that had he done nothing and Obama had done what he was telegraphing he would do, you’ be screaming bloody murder at Rubio and the other Republicans for not doing something to have made things better.

    Your hindsight is 20/20, like everyone else’s.

22. Sen. Sessions has nothing that I can recall that’s good to say about Rubio’s efforts, save that at the last moment the bill writers went back to insert some funds for law-enforcement interests which would bring along some Senators who were hesitating. The record of the bill stinks to high heaven, and Rubio owns it.

23. sdferr:

    Since when did Sessions become the gospel? Look, I respect Sessions’ position on immigration, but not his position on politics and politicians. He has a dog in this race. He is fully behind Trump and probably has been promised something by him. I’m sure he disagrees with Rubio and has for a long time, but at the moment he’s trying to torpedo him.

    I neither believe nor disbelieve Sessions, but he has an interest here and therefore his opinion is tainted. I am going back to contemporaneous sources as best I can, and that’s how I decide.

24. The report issued by Schlafly’s organization recently also uses contemporaneous sources. But then Schlafly herself also supports Trump. Sessions maybe supports Trump, or maybe only supports Trump’s immigration proposals, but not perhaps Trump’s entire candidacy fully. He has not declared. Sessions also support Sen. Cruz in some regards, particularly his immigration stance. So? Believe the none of them who were fighting Rubio and the Gang of Eight at the time? Or what of this fellow who wrote today contra Rubio?

    No. I don’t require that folderal. Rubio didn’t do what he campaigned to do. Simple as that.

25. sdferr:

    No, it’s not as simple as that. Things rarely are.

    If you’re arguing that Cruz is better than Rubio on this, there’s no argument with me. That’s one of many reasons I trust Cruz more on this. But what I thought we were discussing was whether Rubio’s explanation for what he did holds water as an explanation. I think it does. Rubio ran for office in 2010, and the situation had changed in 2013 because Obama was signaling that he was going to do it himself. He had now been re-elected and no longer had to worry about following the rules. So Rubio changed his approach in response to that. That makes a lot more sense to me than to believe that Rubio was lying through his teeth in 2010 and intended to betray his constituents, or didn’t care about betraying his constituents. I think nothing of the sort.

    I think he was trying his best to respond to changed circumstances as he saw them. I find his explanation acceptable, and I find him an acceptable candidate. I would vote for him if he were the nominee. I prefer him to Trump 1000%. And I also would vote for him in a primary even over Cruz if I thought Cruz was sinking and Rubio rising enough to win the nomination over Trump.

26. sdferr: which part about “It takes 60 votes to get a bill through the Senate” do you not understand?

27. It is some serious change of approach to work hand in hand with anti-constitutional statist types the like of Obama, Schumer and Durbin, along with their legion of outside interest groups, rather than seek to use the 47 Senate votes the minority held in ’13 to grind the statist machinations to a halt. And if Obama would break the law, work to build the national perception of his betrayal of our rule of law, to build a national consensus against his executive usurpation. Too hard? Too fuddy duddy for the cool kids? I don’t know. But it sure is a serious change.

28. neo,

    “Rubio is a conservative in everything but immigration, where he is a moderate.”

    Close examination of his record demonstrates otherwise. Would a conservative have offered full support for Obama’s Libyan ‘adventure’?

    “Senator Marco Rubio offered his full-throated support Wednesday for the U.S. intervention in Libya and called on President Barack Obama to be clear that regime change is the objective of America’s involvement.” 3/31/2011
    http://www.weeklystandard.com/marco-rubio-on-libya-and-the-need-for-regime-change/article/556054

    Would a conservative benefit from the support of “Florida’s wealthy sugar producers, who have benefited from sugar import quotas and other corporate welfare that forces Americans to pay approximately twice the world price for sugar.”?
    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429650/marco-rubio-misjudgments-immigration-libya-campus-sexual-assault

    Would a real conservative support S-590, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act? Which pressures “colleges and universities to traduce standards of due process when dealing with students accused of sexual assault. Claiming that a 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in education somehow empowers the government to dictate institutions’ disciplinary procedures, the administration is dictating that a mere “preponderance of the evidence,” rather than “clear and convincing” evidence, be used in determining a life-shattering verdict of guilt.”
    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429650/marco-rubio-misjudgments-immigration-libya-campus-sexual-assault

    Finally, related to immigration but an entirely separate issue; “Rubio has also backed the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States and OPPOSED efforts by conservatives to strip funding for refugees. And his new I-Squared bill – backed by his top tech donors like Larry Ellison – would massively expand Muslim immigration without limit. He has also called Muslim immigration a constitutional right.

    Perhaps the single most telling fact is who reportedly joined Rubio’s campaign team as staff or advisor: the exact same team that brought you the Gang of Eight bill: the same attorney who wrote it (Enrique Gonzalez), the same communications staffers who sold it, the same Senate Chief of Staff who helped dream it all up (Cesar Conda) and, most importantly, the campaign strategist more associated with mass immigration than any consultant in America (Whit Ayres).

    The open-borders donors, like Paul Singer, know exactly what they are buying with Senator Rubio. They are in on the con, and their mark is America.”
    http://www.eagleforum.org/immigration/rubio-record.html

    Reading the article linked directly above conclusively demonstrates that Marco Rubio is a highly unethical, political opportunist. His record demonstrates that nothing he says can be believed.

29. Geoffrey Britain:

    I am referring to the fact that Rubio’s positions are for the most part conservative. I have no interest in nitpicking about him if he is the nominee. As I’ve said over and over, my preferred candidate lately has been Cruz. But Rubio is acceptable to me. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and they are ALL politicians.

    See this comment of mine for more details.

30. Well, sdferr, you just tell us the magic spell you would use to get those extra votes and we’ll do it!

31. 3 days in Reno knocking on doors, passing out flyers for Cruz. I am a strict Constitutionalist, I am here on my own dime, except for free lodging in a cheap motel room that sleeps 4 but holds 5 campaign workers. Let everyone put their money where their moth is. I will be awake for many hours waiting for results.

32. Maybe, just maybe, who ever comes in third (assuming Mr. Trump wins) will decide in favor of party to voluntarily drop out. Both Sen. Cruz and Sen. Rubio are young enough to run again in 8 or 16 years.

    BUT they are BOTH career politicians who won against very long odds. What is most likely is that the Senators will stay in the race hoping that they can conjure up enough votes to win the nomination at a brokered convention.

    Personally, I will cast my ballot in November for the candidate who is not Sec. Clinton.

33. Rubio is only slightly more predictable than Trump. He will act in his own interest. In South Florida, there is a deep and seething dislike for the man that so many of us worked so hard to get elected. Read the Spanish version of the Jorge Ramos interview. Rubio always has an excuse. For me, the Gillibrand bill was the final straw. There was absolutely no excuse except for pandering.

34. fiona:

    Absurd.

    Trump is almost entirely unpredictable. He has NO political record at all, and even his statements have varied greatly over time, many of them very liberal.

    Rubio has said very few liberal things in his life, and has done very few. His conservative bona fides—and actions—are strong

    Rush Limbaugh on Rubio:

    Marco Rubio is no moderate Republican centrist. I could sit here like anybody else could and try to make explanations for you for why he did the Gang of Eight. I’m not even gonna try to put words into his mouth. I don’t want to be seen as making excuses. I’m just telling you, I don’t see Marco Rubio as anything other than a legitimate, full-throated conservative. Nobody’s pure, and nobody is ever free of making mistakes.

    I know Senator Rubio. It’s like I was telling you last week: I know these people. I know that Senator Rubio in the Senate… In many ways, he agrees with Cruz about things. He’s worn out with the Senate. The Senate… I heard this from Allen West when he left the House. I’ve heard, “The incumbents, that’s all they care about is being reelected. You go there to make a difference and you run into brick wall after brick wall after brick wall.” I don’t think… You know, Rubio, I don’t think he wants to stay there 30 years to break through the wall to get a committee chairmanship or whatever.

    I just don’t like this idea that all of a sudden we’re gonna make Rubio the establishment bad guy, as though Rubio is no different than the McCains and the Bob Doles and the Romneys and the others that have come along and been nominated by the establishment. He just isn’t. He has not been talked out of his conservatism. He does not abandon it. He had the best end-of-the-evening speech of anybody last night. He had the best end-of-the-evening speech of anybody. And even the media was dazzled by the fact that he did it without a teleprompter.

    Scorecard on Rubio:

    Heritage action: 94% (fourth most conservative member of Senate; Cruz is first at 100%)

    From National Review:

    Despite infuriating many grassroots conservatives by pushing the failed Gang of Eight immigration-reform bill and advocating a path to legalization, Rubio has an indisputably conservative record as a senator. This is a man who has a lifetime ACU rating of 98 out of 100. A man who has a perfect rating from the NRA in the U.S. Senate. A man who earned scores of 100 in 2014, 100 in 2013, 71 in 2012, and 100 in 2011 from the Family Research Council. A “Taxpayer Super Hero” with a lifetime rating of 95 from Citizens Against Government Waste. A man Club for Growth president David McIntosh called “a complete pro-growth, free-market, limited-government conservative.” Across the board, Rubio’s stances, policy proposals, and rhetoric fall squarely within the bounds of traditional conservatism. Rubio’s the guy who earned a 100 from National Right to Life in two straight cycles, and a zero rating from NARAL.

35. neo,

    Yes, they are ALL politicians. The defining difference is, do they compromise their principles to the degree that they have betrayed any purpose beyond personal aggrandizement?

    As we all know, the perfect can indeed be the enemy of the good. That assumes of course that the good is, in fact ‘good enough’.

    My reading of Rubio is that his personal ambition is such that he betrayed his most specific, solemn promise to the people who had elected him and that, he did so solely because he needed a ‘big’ piece of important legislation to pad his Presidential resume.

    His ‘explanation’ is too facile and hollow, for a man who reluctantly sided with his ideological enemies to prevent greater harm would have been far less eager to compromise, far more insistent that he, at least get something. The bill he signed on too, got him nothing and gave the dems everything they needed. He consistently lied to others as to what was in the bill and got none of the ‘fixes’ he promised. He said he’d drop out of sponsorship of the bill if it didn’t meet certain conditions but when it didn’t he continued to sponsor a bill that he then knew was a betrayal of everything he’d promised. A bill that if passed would have been far worse than any executive order Obama could have issued. Rubio’s evasions and that is what they are just do not stand up to close scrutiny.

    That kind of man can have only one reason why his record on other issues is so consistently conservative. It cannot be virtue because he has already demonstrated a basic lack of virtue. Leaving as explanation that no ‘reward’ worth betraying his constituents on those issues has yet been offered. The day one does, he’ll betray on those issues as well. Just as a man who has once taken a bribe will not hesitate to do so again, when the reward for doing so is sufficiently attractive.

    Should Rubio yet win the Presidency and, he then predictably betrays us again, you will not be able to say that you were not warned.

    The Clintons of the world stand forth for all to see, the backstabbers somehow always manage to surprise ‘enough’ people. That is because we ALL want to believe that those who appear to agree with us are honest in their assertions. Liars… lie and there is no limit to how high the most convincing liars can rise.

36. I have zero hopes of Rubio. He’s a slick simulacrum of a “conservative.” You can’t be “just a little bit pregnant”: the magnitude of the amnesty issue (anyone remember we realized it would be Game Over for opposition to the Super State?) is too great. I’m still pro-choice (moderately), so I’m not in with the Akin no-abortion model, though that won’t actually be acted on.

    Still praying for Ted, though the extent and viciousness of the character assassination, with the Leftists and their collaborators, Estab. Repubs, has slammed him onto the mat. He’s been Borked. He’s been Palinized.

    this is horrible

37. Also, Rubio’s record of 79% conservative in the Senate ain’t all that great. When he actually was there to, you know, Vote. He’s in his sole term, and has been absent an amazing amount of the time, and has let it be known that he feels Destined for Much Higher Things than mere Senator.

    Ted, while he’s also ambitious, has done a GREAT job as Senator, and has consistently shown up and taken on the powers that be. God bless him.

38. Beverly:

    Did you see this? Rubio has a lot of ratings a lot higher than that.

    But let me just say—and I’m saying this to everyone—I have said over and over what I think about Cruz, and that he has been my first choice for quite some time. But Rubio is acceptable to me. This is nitpicky “perfect is the enemy of the good” stuff. It’s fine to trust Cruz as a conservative more than you do Rubio—in fact, that’s how I feel, too. But the other person—be it Rubio if you’re a Cruz supporter, or Cruz if you’re a Rubio supporter—is not a demon. I have studied both their records a lot, and they are both flawed—Rubio more than Cruz, in that regard—but Cruz has not always covered himself with glory, nor has he during this campaign.

    If either is nominated, I support him. I am sick of the circular firing squad.

    Trump is different to me—he has no political record, and I find him a reprehensible character. What’s more, he can’t hold a candle to either Cruz or Rubio in terms of conservatism. He’s not even close. He is the only one of the three I perceive as a tyrant-in-the-making and a person with a character disorder (narcissism). That puts him in a different category from all the others.

    Between Cruz and Rubio supporters, what I see is a circular firing squad right now.

39. Beverly:

    By the way, don’t blame the “establishment” for what happened to Cruz. First of all, the back and forth between Cruz and Rubio has been equal, each calling the other “liar” and somewhat distorting the other’s record.

    But the main actor in the Palinization (or whatever you want to call it) of Cruz has been Trump and his supporters, not the establishment. It’s been going on ever since Trump and his troops saw Cruz as the main threat to him. Character assassination, plus an assist from some dirty tricks by the Cruz camp. Carson took part, too, being nastily passive-aggressive to Cruz in the last debate (I wrote about it at the time). The people who have attacked Cruz are NOT primarily the establishment, it’s Trump supporters and the alt-right.

40. Geoffrey Britain:

    I can’t say I wasn’t “warned” if Rubio were president and betrayed conservatives?

    I beg to differ. First of all, conservatives consider one false move a “betrayal”—and I’m not talking about Rubio here, I’m talking about my observations over time. One false move and you’re OUT. So if Rubio were president, I guarantee he would betray conservatives, at least according to many conservatives.

    But let’s say it’s a real betrayal, an important and/or deep and meaningful one. How is it you’re setting yourself as a person warning a naive and trusting person (me)? I already said I only believe Rubio’s explanation “about 70%.” I already said I have reservations about him. He was not one of my original picks (Walker, then Fiorina, then Cruz). What part of this is unclear? What I have said over and over is that if he is the nominee I will support him. I don’t think any meaningful betrayal is in the offing, but I realize it may be.

    So no, neither you nor anyone else would get to say you warned me.

    Unless you’re saying I shouldn’t vote for him, even were he to be nominated.

41. I watched some of the Immigration Bill hearings on C-SPAN. I understand why the four Republicans got involved. The Democrats held the Senate majority and they were worried that “Dingy Harry” and company would manage to push through something truly outrageous. They also saw it as a means for the GOP to not seem so adverse to the Latino community. They can count votes and know, that as the Latino vote increases, the GOP possibilities decrease unless they change their image. McCain and Graham were especially aware of that. Rubio, with his Latino heritage, believed that he could make a difference.

    What I saw was Rubio and Jeff Flake arguing hard for better border security and stringent requirements for legalization without citizenship. The four Democrats were united and pushed back hard on any conservative arguments. The compromises were more toward their views.

    The final bill was a mish mash with eight hundred and forty-four pages and over three hundred amendments – most by GOP Senators.
    There was no chance it would pass a GOP controlled House.

    The citizen pushback against passage was, I think, a wakeup call for Rubio. It became clear to him that nothing could be decided about the status of illegals until the border was controlled. Rubio also took a severe tongue lashing over the bill from Chris Crane, the head of the ICE union, at a press conference called by Senator Sessions. That blunt input also had an effect on Rubio’s views on immigration reform. He has tried hard to explain his change of mind, but the immigration hawks will never trust him. It probably means his candidacy is cooked.

    Can Cruz beat Trump with Carson and Kasich lingering on in the wings. We may get a chance to see if Rubio can’t win Florida.

42. I agree with Neo. I like Cruz, I can vote for Rubio, and either would get my hearty support in the general. Trump/Hillary/Bernie; a pox on them all if it comes down to choosing between gold plated dumpster fire and pending indictment/ Venezuela.
    As Mencken so aptly observed “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

43. neo,

    No, I’m not saying we shouldn’t vote for Rubio if he is the nominee. I am saying that he’s another McConnell/Boehner/Ryan and that means a slower March to the Collective. Eventually, you’re just as dead from a slowly metastasizing cancer, as you are from a fatal heart attack. Which makes moot, discussion of how he’s ‘mostly’ conservative.

    I am saying that other than Cruz, every other current candidate takes America over the cliff, toward the rocks far below.

    And, given the pathetic state of the public, it’s virtually certain that even Cruz can’t stop it. Trump’s supporters, referenced at the link above and Sander’s supporters, of whom 70+% embrace socialism… guarantee our collective fate.

    But… a Pres. Cruz could use the bully pulpit to awaken some greater percentage of the public as to why the republic has seemingly failed, which is that a republic is only as strong as the aggregate integrity of its citizens. And, the greater that percentage, the greater the likelihood that something worthwhile can emerge from the ashes.

    Since it looks increasingly likely, if not yet definitive, that he will not succeed, the future will be very grim indeed.

44. correction: all of Sander’s supporters embrace socialism. 70+% of the young voters of today embrace socialism, a far more disturbing reality.

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