Rubio: Tea Party Caucus Not for Me

[AuH20]

Predictable.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/20/rubio-sidesteps-tea-party-caucus-committment/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_politicalticker+(Blog:+Political+Ticker)&fbid=zgLGbKWfv3c

[Elwar]

Shocked!!!

http://snitker2010.com/

[bobbyw24]

Not long ago, Jim DeMint, a Republican senator from South Carolina, summed up the purity side this way: “I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.” And when I asked Rubio recently which current senator he most admires, he said DeMint.

Crist represents the governing pragmatist who was once seen as a winner who could reclaim the political center for Republicans. He was a popular governor with crossover appeal among Democrats and independents. For a time, Arnold Schwarzenegger fit this mold in California. So did, to a degree, Mitt Romney, when he was the governor of Massachusetts, and Mike Huckabee in Arkansas, though each worked to present himself as ideologically pure in his presidential run.

In recent decades, both parties have looked to governors with moderate appeal to deliver them from rough patches (see Bill Clinton for the Democrats in 1992 or George W. Bush for the Republicans in 2000). But especially when the economy goes south, governors can be sunk by their can-do bona fides and their executive distaste for ideological zeal. It is almost impossible to scour the record of a governor presiding in a weak economy without finding some nod to pragmatism.

Yet the presumed purity of Republican primary voters dictates that candidates emphasize their ideological fitness. “I am the true conservative in this race,” Crist has been doggedly reminding people. He says he is a pro-gun, anti-abortion, small-government conservative who worships Ronald Reagan. He says he is against gay marriage, frugal (he pays off his single credit card every month) and despised by criminals (he once proposed that chain gangs be reinstituted, earning him the nickname Chain Gang Charlie).

None of this has made Crist any less of a target to conservatives who view him as a coveted Florida marlin to reel in. (Or if you prefer hunting analogies, the prized RINO.) Nor has it thwarted Rubio’s growing conservative cachet. Rubio, who has been dominating straw polls of conservative advocates across Florida while pulling even in real ones, is Hispanic, uses Twitter and listens to Snoop Dogg — not your grandmother’s Republican, in other words.

“There are people who believe the way to be more successful as Republicans is to be more like Democrats,” Rubio told me early last month, essentially distilling his case against Crist, whom he keeps describing backhandedly as “a really nice, pleasant guy.” “And the people who believe we need to be more like Democrats will vote for Charlie Crist.” There is also the more stylistic question of whether Crist’s conciliatory approach fits with the basic tenor of an impatient opposition party. He may not be angry enough to win a Republican primary this year.

In November, on Veterans Day, I went to watch Crist at the swearing-in ceremony for Miami’s new mayor, Tomás Regalado. I found myself trapped outside an overcrowded City Hall in a sporadic downpour with a desperate crush of about 200 people — many of them well-dressed Hispanics claiming to be Regalado’s relatives. They kept pressing invitations into the face of a single beleaguered police officer who was guarding the front entrance (he kept saying no and blaming the fire marshal). Eventually everyone calmed down and settled for a closed-circuit TV feed of the ceremony.

“Let our beautiful city be a beacon of light,” an archbishop prayed to begin the ceremony. It felt more like a beacon of chaos. At one point I turned around and saw two people standing quietly in the parking lot holding up big placards of Crist’s face, captioned “Sellout.”

Protesters have been mocking Crist at Tea Party rallies across the state. His opponents play (and replay) video of “The Hug,” a killer clip from last February in which the governor, while introducing President Obama in Fort Myers, happened to engage in a quickie man-embrace with the new commander-in-chief on the podium (Stephen Colbert called the episode a “terrorist nipple bump”). Every time someone mentioned “The Hug,” I thought of “The Kiss” from Connecticut’s bitter 2006 Democratic Senate primary. Supporters of challenger Ned Lamont, who wound up defeating Senator Joe Lieberman, made great hay of a millisecond clip in which President Bush appeared to peck Lieberman’s right cheek after his 2005 State of the Union address. (Lieberman went on to win re-election as a third-party candidate but only after scores of “Kiss” buttons, signs and other memorabilia nourished the Connecticut economy.) When I mentioned “The Hug” to Crist, it was as close as I came to seeing him annoyed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10florida-t.html

[angelatc]

I'd be happier if the TEA Party caucus didn't invite Rubio.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Let's make one thing clear "Political Center" has been the utter destruction of this country too.

Rubio is a PRODUCT of the Aspen Institute. He will be another Manchurian Poison Political Careerist.

Anytime anyone states... "oh they're good, they're in the center... oh they're a moderate" LOOK OUT

All this means is... "You vote for my bad bill on the Marxist Left and I'll vote for your Bad Bill on the Fascist Right and we'll make the people pay." It's a slow increment loss of American people Liberties/Freedoms.

Look at the destruction by so-called Moderates and Political Centrists like; Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Blanche Lincoln, and Scott Brown.

Doesn't matter, they're almost all elitist sellouts in the skillful art of stealing the people's money/freedoms while enriching themselves and their masters. The true Money masters control this sandbox of political Children.

[speciallyblend]

Let's make one thing clear "Political Center" has been the utter destruction of this country too.

Rubio is a PRODUCT of the Aspen Institute. He will be another Manchurian Poison Political Careerist.

Anytime anyone states... "oh they're good, they're in the center... oh they're a moderate" LOOK OUT

All this means is... "You vote for my bad bill on the Marxist Left and I'll vote for your Bad Bill on the Fascist Right and we'll make the people pay." It's a slow increment loss of American people Liberties/Freedoms.

Look at the destruction by so-called Moderates and Political Centrists like; Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Blanche Lincoln, and Scott Brown.

Doesn't matter, they're almost all elitist sellouts in the skillful art of stealing the people's money/freedoms while enriching themselves and their masters. The true Money masters control this sandbox of political Children.

drove that nail home on one post;)