This is as good an analysis as any we’ve seen on what Obama is up to and why the electorate is swiftly becoming enraged with the political establishment:
“You have leaders saying, ‘We know you hate this . . . but we’re going to force it down your throat because it’s good for you.’ It’s almost an elitist attitude toward the American people . . . that they [Mr. Obama and his policy allies] are smarter than the rest of us.”
It comes from Marco Rubio, who not only has correctly analyzed the current political environment (“They voted for somebody they’d never heard of in Barack Obama because he ran on the platform of a very devoted centrist.”) but who is also adopting the same formula that helped Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, and Scott Brown win their races:
Mr. Rubio says he won’t shy away from social issues if asked. He is pro-life and says he would support a Senate filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee under some circumstances. But his campaign is staking out an updated version of the Reagan agenda. “We’re focused on jobs and national security,” he says, “because those are the great and profound national issues of our moment and that’s what 95% of our campaign is based on.”
Front and center is the idea that, fiscally, the federal government is running off the rails. That Washington should be “taking borrowed money to fund the general operation of government,” he says, “and that somehow the government will build so many roads and bridges that everyone will have a job for the next 30 years is absurd.”
Rubio, of course, defies the mainstream narrative that posits a conflict between Tea Party populists and wonkish conservative reformers. He is, as the Republican Party must be, in the business of assembling a broad-based coalition. On immigration, for example, he sets forth a workable formula that other conservatives would be wise to follow:
Securing the border is critical, Mr. Rubio says, but he also recommends that Republicans keep their nativist impulses in check to avoid hurting the party with Latinos, a good chunk of whom are natural GOP allies on growth and opportunity. The rhetoric of some Republicans on immigration “has created a problem,” he says. “I don’t think the Republican Party should be the anti-illegal immigration party. We should be the pro legal immigration party, and we need to do a better job of explaining that to people.”
For the snooty conservative pundits and Republican Beltway insiders who tried to chase Rubio out of the race, this should come as a bracing reminder that there is plenty of political wisdom and talent outside Washington. It is foolish to squelch challengers or to dissuade newcomers. Where else is the next generation of conservative superstars to come from? Thankfully, Rubio ignored the naysayers and may well join Christie, McDonnell, and Brown in the group of talented new conservative leaders who owe their political emergence to the excesses of Obama.
