AuH20
06-22-2011, 10:57 AM
;)
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/06/21/will-new-gop-isolationism-leave-new-star-marco-rubio-isolated/
Yet, in that respect, has the precocious Rubio finally made his first misstep on the national stage? After so shrewdly reading the Tea Party leaves from the moment he announced his Senate candidacy in 2009, has the conservative former Florida House Speaker missed what looks increasingly – especially after last week's presidential candidates debate – like the GOP's return to isolationism? It's too early to know if the internationalism that's held sway among Republicans for the past decade is on the outs. But Rubio, who insists the U.S. must be “the watchman on the wall of world freedom,” has certainly thrown his foreign policy lot in with Senate colleagues like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, whose interventionist voices don't seem to set the GOP agenda the way they used to. Their declining clout in turn could be a drag on Rubio, who is widely considered a 2012 vice-presidential prospect.
In reality, Rubio doesn't have much of a choice. As a conservative Cuban-American – and especially as a hard-liner on U.S. Cuba policy – he wouldn't have the luxury of softening his pro-active principles even if he wanted to. When he became a Senator, Rubio didn't just carry the fiscal fury of his Tea Party backers; he also inherited the mantle of a Cuban exile leadership that still believes in cold war-style regime change in Havana, even after strategies like a 49-year-old U.S. trade embargo have utterly failed to dislodge the communist Castro brothers.
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/06/21/will-new-gop-isolationism-leave-new-star-marco-rubio-isolated/
Yet, in that respect, has the precocious Rubio finally made his first misstep on the national stage? After so shrewdly reading the Tea Party leaves from the moment he announced his Senate candidacy in 2009, has the conservative former Florida House Speaker missed what looks increasingly – especially after last week's presidential candidates debate – like the GOP's return to isolationism? It's too early to know if the internationalism that's held sway among Republicans for the past decade is on the outs. But Rubio, who insists the U.S. must be “the watchman on the wall of world freedom,” has certainly thrown his foreign policy lot in with Senate colleagues like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, whose interventionist voices don't seem to set the GOP agenda the way they used to. Their declining clout in turn could be a drag on Rubio, who is widely considered a 2012 vice-presidential prospect.
In reality, Rubio doesn't have much of a choice. As a conservative Cuban-American – and especially as a hard-liner on U.S. Cuba policy – he wouldn't have the luxury of softening his pro-active principles even if he wanted to. When he became a Senator, Rubio didn't just carry the fiscal fury of his Tea Party backers; he also inherited the mantle of a Cuban exile leadership that still believes in cold war-style regime change in Havana, even after strategies like a 49-year-old U.S. trade embargo have utterly failed to dislodge the communist Castro brothers.