Thread: Rubio Heading to Calif. for High-Dollar Fundraisers

By Scott Conroy - August 20, 2013
Real Clear Politics

Though he faces potentially damaging backlash from the right over his support for immigration reform, Marco Rubio continues to demonstrate one of his foremost strengths as a likely 2016 presidential contender: a robust, nationwide fundraising network.

After hauling in an impressive $3 million in the second quarter of this year, the Florida Republican is heading to California this week for a series of top-dollar fundraisers, according to two sources with knowledge of Rubio’s schedule.

The freshman senator's aides have kept quiet about his visit to the Golden State, but one GOP source said that the fundraising events this week will be held in private homes scattered around the money-heavy San Francisco Bay Area and in Southern California.

“There hasn’t been a lot of fanfare to it,” one Republican source said of Rubio’s trip. “But he’s going around the state.”

After helping to lead the charge for a landmark bill that would provide a path to citizenship for approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants, Rubio has faced an outcry among conservatives who say the measure would amount to amnesty. (Though the bill passed the Senate in June, its chances of even being considered en toto by the House are virtually nonexistent.)

Rubio spent last week touring Florida and hobnobbing privately with right-leaning activists, many of whom have been irate over his reform efforts.

He is likely to receive a more uniformly welcoming reception in California, however, where many of the top GOP financiers hold moderate positions on an immigration overhaul and other social issues.

Another potential 2016 GOP contender, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, is heading to the state in early October to deliver the keynote speech at the California Republican Party convention and to hobnob with donors.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...rs_119655.html

Related:
http://www.alipac.us/f12/rubio-zucke...ration-285980/