Senator MarcoRubio continues running a scorched-earth immigration reform defense, as heramps up his criticism and attacks against the very conservatives that helpedhim win his 2010 U.S. Senate race. Since his much anticipated immigrationreform surfaced last week, Rubio has been out defending every single opposingview that has been written about his flawed immigration bill.
What mostpeople don’t know about Rubio is that he has always supported a pathway tocitizenship. While he was Speaker of the Florida House, Rubio blocked sixpro-immigration bills, and then defended his actions by saying that the billsdid not have the sufficient votes to get out of their respective committees.Rubio was right. The bills lacked the necessary votes, but now several keyfigures close to those negotiations have told the Shark Tank that its theirbelief that Rubio made it a point to squash those six bills.
Rubio’sown ‘yes man’ and Communications Director Alex Burgos, who has long been anactivist and supporter of a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, iscurrently the man behind all of Rubio’s conservative media attacks.
Burgostold Fox Latino that Rubio “is determined to counter the hysterics andmisinformation about the bill with facts and perspective.”
“Because our immigration system is broken in so many waysand requires many reforms to fix it, it will always be far easier to attackproposed solutions than to offer them,” Burgos told Fox News Latino. “It’s whya lot of misinformation tends to land in people’s inboxes and gets regurgitatedin the media. It’s important to clear up–Fox Latino
The onlything Burgos needs to clear up is, whether or not his personal support ofamnesty for illegal immigrants is playing a role in the Senator’sdecision-making process.
Back inearly 2012, we posted a story about how Rubio has possibly started to show histrue political and personal colors, when he began to alienate the very peoplethat helped him get elected.
AHistory of Mistrust
Unfortunately, Rubio change of posture towardshis early supporters turned out to be a consistent one and not a temporarylapse of loyalty on his part. Rubio himself has personally been approached bycertain key supporters who have expressed their concerns about what’s happenedwith him as well as whom he has surrounded himself with.
Rubio was also advised to reach out to some of thestaffers and supporters who devoted themselves to his campaign and had feltbetrayed by his “self-serving,” and dismissive nature. But in keeping with hisnon-confrontational demeanor and ‘Hear no Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil’approach to dealing with people, Rubio did not reach out to those individualsafter vowing to do so. Senator Rubio lost a certain degree of respect with afew for failing to “do the right thing,” for not acting when he needed to.
Now, more and more of Rubio’s ‘real’ statewidesupport team have grown discontented and disappointed. Apparently, there is arunning joke around the state of Florida that whenever someone distancesthemselves from someone, at whatever level is said to be “Pulling a Marco.”
What is truly interesting is the fact that many ofRubio’s early supporters- most of whom do not know one other- have this samecommon complaint about Rubio. They believe Rubio has gotten what he wanted fromthem and has forgotten who it is that got him elected.
These supporters are not upset with Rubio, but theydo feel that they were duped into supporting someone who they thought wasgenuine. Some of these supporters in question just shrug it all off andconsider Rubio’s ‘rear view mirror’ approach to outreach laughable.-RubioStiff-Arms Loyal Supporters
Shortlyafter we posted this story, Rubio immediately went into damage-control mode,calling just about everyone he thought could have an issue with him. Just to beclear, Rubio did not use his “MarcoPhone” to make these telephonecalls.
Now Rubiohas decided to anchor his already shaky credibility and political capitalto this immigration reform bill, while demonstrating to others outside of the Florida and Miami political circles of just how shrewd and disloyalhe can be.
Redstate’sErick Erickson has also sniffed out what many in these very same politicalcircles have known for awhile, Rubio is not who he pretends to be. Ericksoneven points out that Rubio is attacking former Senator Jim DeMint, the very manwho bucked his party and supported Rubio in 2010, when no one else would. Wayto go Marco.
I am deeply, deeply disturbed by the games being played bypro-immigration advocates on the right, including staff inSenator Marco Rubio’s office, Grover Norquist, and others.
They are attacking other conservatives who disagree withthem as racists, slavery supporters, bigots, haters, baby killers,un-Christian, etc. They are waging a coordinated attack between SenatorRubio’s office and others against conservative stalwarts like the HeritageFoundation and Jim DeMint.
They are proposing a plan that thus far appears to beunworkable, is wholly too complicated, and is a distraction from issues that wecould all agree on in the name of getting a plan acceptable to Democrats. In the process, their attackson conservatives designed to intimidate, browbeat, and silence them opens oldwounds and does exactly what the Democrats hoped to do — divide the right andplay directly to the fears of Hispanic voters who have for so long seenpolitical leaders of both parties demagogue the issue.
Many of the people who want an immigration solution franklycould care less about Hispanic voters. They see this as an issue the GOP has toget right on and they will do whatever it takes to get right on the issue. Theyare playing political games. Seeing self-styled conservatives and libertarianstrying to pass any legislation that is labeled “comprehensive” should always bea red flag.
I have seen friends paint others as racists, assympathizers to abortion advocates, and as haters all to try to steam rollthrough their preferred policy solution. I have seen good conservativeorganizations attacked and lumped in with fringe groups. I have seen mainstreamgroups characterized as fringe. I have seen people whore their faith in thename of immigration reform.
I have seen shameful things. What will be the cost paid inthese attacks? These are not liberals attacking, but other members of thecenter-right. They now claim thatmaybe Boston would not have happened had this bill been passed or, at worst, at least with thisbill millions of new immigrations coming into the country will be known insteadof unknown. I’m sure the dead eight year old and his family will be consoled bythat.-Redstate
Ericksonalso points out the obvious campaign-style intimidation and browbeating tacticsMarco Rubio and his ‘new allies’ are currently using against their own.Remember, this is the same Marco Rubio who prides himself as being a ‘Man ofGod,’ who makes it a point to take his family to church up to twice a week, andwho even conducts Bible studies in his home.
Nothing,I mean nothing, comes out of Rubio’s office without Rubio himself signingoff on it. Burgos and his PAC team run cover for Rubio at every turn. You see,Rubio is only a ‘cash cow’ to them, nothing more. Just ask his grossly overpaidPAC ‘consultants.’
Rubio recentlytold the political science class he teaches at Florida International Universitythat in politics, you need to stay loyal to the people that helped you alongthe way. Perhaps Rubio needs to start taking some of his own advice?
Cross-posted at The Shark Tank
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.