The word around is that Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio is the GOP’s guy . . . the party’s new rising star.
Really?
Why?
I’m not really sure.
I mean, the first term Republican hasn’t done much since he took the oath of office as a United States Senator but talk.
But, of course, since talk is mostly what politicians do, evidently that’s all it takes to be a star in Republican circles today.
Don’t believe me?
What would you say if I told you that the cover of the February 18, 2013 issue of TIME MAGAZINE decrees that Marco Rubio is “The Republican Savior”?
Savior?
Really?
Hmmmm.
Couldn’t be a bit of political hype magnified to the nth degree, could it?
Couldn’t be that Republican political strategists have decided to leverage TIME’s characterization of the junior senator from Florida as a savior to distract from the fact that the Republican Party hasn’t got a clue about how to deliver what Americans want and need from government in 2013?
Huh?
When Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner (not considered to be the brightest bulb in the GOP hamper) announced that Rubio was going to deliver the rebuttal to President Obama’s state of the nation address, he actually said that Rubio “carries our party’s banner of freedom, opportunity and prosperity in a way few others can.”
What does that mean?
What has 41-year old Marco Rubio done to earn the right to carry the GOP’s banner of freedom, opportunity, and prosperity in a way few others can?
Huh?
Karl Rove, the fading Republican strategist who was once known as George W. Bush’s brain, proved how far he’s faded and that he was in fact ‘W’s’ brain when he recently said (in public) that Marco Rubio was “the best communicator since Ronald Reagan.”
Are you kidding me?
Aside from delivering a tepid speech at last year’s failed Republican Convention, what has Marco Rubio done to be considered by anyone, even a prevaricator like Rove, to be the best communicator since Ronald Reagan?
I mean, did you see Rubio’s ‘rebuttal’ last night?
Puh-leeze . . . after watching that pathetic performance, it was clear to me that Marco Rubio could barely be considered to be the best communicator since Bobby Jindal!
Let’s look at some of the stuff Senator Rubio tried to jam down our throats . . . like this gem: “Presidents in both parties – from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan – have known that our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity. But President Obama? He believes it’s the cause of our problems.”
Is that right?
Tell me . . . where is it written that President Barack Obama ever said that America’s free enterprise economy is the cause of our problems?
Did President Obama say those words last night? Did he actually stand before a joint session of Congress and the world media and say, “I believe that America’s free enterprise system is the cause of our problems”?
Did you hear that?
I didn’t.
Rubio went on to say, that President Obama said the economic downturn “happened because our government didn’t tax enough, spend enough and control enough.”
Did you hear the president say last night or any other time that the 2008 economic collapse would NOT have happened if the federal government had only “taxed enough, spent enough, and controlled enough”?
I’ve gone through the transcript of the state of the union address and I can’t find it.
Rubio went on to say, “And, therefore, as you heard tonight, his solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more.”
Really?
I didn’t hear that either.
In fact, when I double-checked the transcript of last night’s state of the union address to find where the honorable senator came up with that declaration, I couldn’t find that the President of the United States said anything that even remotely sounded like, “The solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more, and spend more.”
I know what you’re thinking: Davy, you’re being way too hard on Senator Rubio! He’s a young Republican who’s trying to make a name for himself. A little hyperbole along the way is to be expected. Lighten up, willya?
If that’s what you’re really thinking right about now, we’ll have to agree to disagree because Marco Rubio is not only no savior, history will one day record that he was nothing more than a temporary pothole patch on the Republican Party’s road to recovery.
How can I be so sure? Simple . . . because when Rubio ended his rebuttal last night and my TV screen faded to black, all I could think was, Are you kidding me?
How about you?
Comments? Questions? Contact the author at: davyjones@businesswriters.biz or Tweet: @DavyZJones
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