And he appeared willing, his detractors said, to abandon the interests of his district if the end result was a political promotion for himself. His election to speaker was made possible, in part, because of a bargain he had made: In exchange for votes from northern Florida lawmakers, former legislators and aides said, he agreed not to fight a measure that increased money for school spending in less-populated, rural regions of the state and reduced it in denser, high-cost areas like Miami.
“He saw his path to be speaker and it came at the expense of his constituents, literally,” said Christian Ulvert, a Democratic strategist who worked as a legislative aide at the time.
.. And at a time when Republican presidential politics are being dominated by candidates who are outsiders to the political system, Mr. Rubio, with his ability to navigate intraparty politics and win over powerful benefactors, has proved himself to be a master of the inside game.
What Would Jeb Do? An ex-front-runner looks to his brother’s advisers.
Bush was pilloried by Democrats for his “stuff happens” remark, but he defended it, telling me that the government doesn’t have a solution to every problem, and that sometimes government action makes matters worse. Some variety of a laissez-faire philosophy is standard for modern Republicans, at least on most domestic issues. But, increasingly in recent months, Bush, like a number of his colleagues, has been making the case for aggressive intervention abroad. Two days earlier, Russia had carried out its first air strikes in Syria. When I asked Bush how he would respond if he were President, he said that it was the lack of American action that had created the dire situation in Iraq and Syria, and invited the Russian military to bolster the Assad regime.
.. Bush’s view represents a return to a simplistic interventionism that seemed discredited in the wake of the Iraq debacle.
.. Obama thinks that intractable foreign-policy crises should be guided by the physician’s maxim of “first, do no harm”—or, as his aides have said privately, “Don’t do stupid shit.” To Republican hawks, this sounds like a willful and dangerous abdication of American power and influence.
.. When Jeb Bush began his campaign, he enlisted as advisers some of the realists from his father’s camp, including the former Secretary of State James Baker. But the heaviest contingent consisted of his brother’s liege men: Paul Wolfowitz, the Defense Department official who made the ideological case for invading Iraq; John Hannah, who had been an adviser to Dick Cheney and pushed bad intelligence into Colin Powell’s famous speech at the U.N. making the case for war; Porter Goss, the former C.I.A. director who condoned waterboarding as an interrogation technique; and Stephen Hadley, the former national-security adviser, who took the blame for false assertions that President Bush made about nuclear yellowcake allegedly sought by Saddam Hussein from Niger.
.. When voters went to the polls in November, 2008, Bush’s job-approval rating dipped to twenty per cent, the lowest of any outgoing President in the history of polling.
.. “There are some politicians in Washington who approach foreign military action as if they’re playing Risk,” he said. “They want to deploy troops and command them in battle.” He added, “A number of politicians treat American boots on the ground as a talisman to demonstrate that they’re really tough.”
.. As a former city commissioner in West Miami and then a state legislator, Rubio knew the foreign-policy issues that important Florida constituencies care about, such as the Jewish community’s staunchly pro-Israel views and the Cuban-American community’s fierce opposition to Castro. He had little experience with broader foreign-policy questions.
.. During the 2013 fight over budget cuts, Rubio advocated for government-spending reform. He has since grown less cautionary, arguing for an increase in military spending and calling it the “most important obligation of the federal government.”
.. Rubio’s foreign policy is a clear response to Obama’s alleged retreat from the world. The President’s biggest mistakes, in this view, were all failures to intervene more aggressively.
.. When Baker appeared on Jeb Bush’s list, neoconservatives expressed alarm. His foreign-policy views—diplomacy, stability, and serious doubts about interventions requiring large numbers of U.S. troops—are closer to Obama’s than to George W. Bush’s. Jeb Bush faced a revolt from donors and excoriation in neoconservative publications.
.. At the J Street dinner, Baker criticized Benjamin Netanyahu for “diplomatic missteps and political gamesmanship,” and spoke about his own role in the first Bush Administration’s withholding of loan guarantees to Israel in order to pressure the government to halt settlement construction.
.. Morton Klein, the president of the conservative Zionist Organization of America, told Bloomberg that Bush’s association with Baker would cost the candidate: “There are many mega-donors who will not be with him because of that.”
.. “What you need to know is that who I listen to when I need advice on the Middle East is George W. Bush.” The Bush campaign later insisted that Jeb was speaking narrowly about Israeli policy. Either way, the message was clear: the hawks were back in control of Republican foreign policy.
Nonprofit Masks Source of Ads Backing Rubio
Pressed on whether he believes they should reveal their funding, Mr. Rubio said: “I think they should follow the law. And if people want to change the law to provide disclosures for groups that participate in the political process, I’m open to that idea, but that’s not the law right now.”
Why Marco Rubio’s Chances Are Rising
Mr. Rubio would be an outstanding choice to show Americans and the world that anyone, even a minority person, can come to America (if they get special government status and assistance) and become a cheerleader for: Bigotry, homophobia, misogyny, privilege, and a smaller, weaker government that helps fewer people.
And who better than the son of a privileged immigrant to lead the country back to racism and xenophobia?
However, the ideal ticket will be Rubio-Fiorina, or Fiorina-Carson, or Trump-Rubio.
The Republicans are so lucky; they have so many choice.
The Democrats have very limited choices.
.. Not not that I would be for him – ever! – but Rubio seems to be the more malleable candidate, just looking at this in terms of how the oligarchs might see it. He also has that republican “baby” face the party seems to want to promote. He can talk a good line, he clearly has already proven he’s for sale, and likely the low info voters can be persuaded he’s theirs.
So, yes, why not Rubio? A well-packaged lackey. With a winning smile and glib, well-practiced lines.