Maybe Rubio’s Just a Bad Presidential Candidate
While it is often taken for granted that Rubio is the one that party leaders and donors should get behind, he has scarcely any qualifications to be president. He has nothing like the executive experience that the other “establishment” candidates have in spades. (If you judged Rubio against Kasich or Bush just on their resumes, he is hardly the obvious “establishment” choice.) Rubio also ran away from the only major piece of legislation that he worked on in his one term in the Senate. That does not exactly scream leadership material to the people that are “supposed” to rally behind him.
.. Many people are impressed by Rubio because he delivers speeches well and performs capably in debates. He is smooth and fluent when speaking about policy (even if the things he’s saying about it happen to be dangerous or nonsensical).
.. For most people, he doesn’t inspire the sort of excitement or devotion that Trump does, and that’s because he is a little too polished, too scripted, and too much the career politician (which of course is exactly what he is).
.. Add in his other weaknesses, including his unappealing message of perpetual meddling in foreign conflicts, and you’ve got a recipe for a bad candidate.