Thread: Rubio’s anti-Cruz gambit may pay off

Rubio’s anti-Cruz gambit may pay off
By Jennifer Rubin January 18 at 12:00 PM

When Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) first attacked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for his flip-flops on immigration, many in the conservative media were confused and critical. Why attack Cruz on a subject on which Rubio had trouble with the base? Isn’t Cruz always going to be tougher on immigration than Rubio? Ah, they were playing checkers and the Rubio team was playing, if not chess, then dodge ball.

Immigration was only the first salvo. Soon Rubio was hitting Cruz for hypocrisy on national security. Then came charges against Cruz’s “sneaky” VAT tax. Next, fate intervened with a New York Times story about Cruz’s loans from Citibank and Goldman Sachs (unreported when they could have hurt him in the campaign, but later disclosed) — just when Cruz was smearing “New York values.” On that one Rubio got an assist from Donald Trump, who on Sunday again ripped into Cruz:

Oh, he’s a total hypocrite.

How about his fundraising and how about when he does his personal financial disclosure form and he doesn’t put on that he’s borrowing money from Goldman Sachs and then today it comes out that he’s also borrowing money from Citibank and he doesn’t list it.

You know why?

He wants to look like Robin Hood, that he is the one protecting the people from the banks. Well, he’s actually borrowing money and personally guaranteeing it and not disclosing it, which is illegal.

Rubio then piled on with a Cruz flip-flop on crop insurance. In response to Cruz’s appearance on Fox News Sunday, Rubio adviser Joe Pounder put out a statement accusing Cruz of, in essence, lying. “On Fox News Sunday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) came up with the classic-Washington excuse of blaming his staff for why he flip-flopped on crop insurance. Unfortunately the facts are pretty clear: Senator Cruz knowingly voted to cut crop insurance, Senator Pat Roberts said Cruz knew what he was voting on and warned him it would hurt him in Iowa, and minutes later Cruz changed his vote.”

Cruz is now playing defense 24/7 not only against Rubio but against Trump. If Cruz feels like he is being bombarded from all sides, he is — just as Rubio’s team apparently had intended all along. We will see if it works, but it is a lesson in how to take down an arrogant opponent.

First, the basic charge has to have underlying merit. Here it certainly seems Cruz is a political opportunist in a class by himself. Cruz’s ability to sustain an argument over a long period of time, as he did when favoring legalization in the immigration reform fight and later disclaim it as a phony poison (i.e. he was lying then, not now) is remarkable. His efforts to zig-zag between isolationist pandering (e.g. voting for NSA restrictions, voting for a budget with less defense spending than President Obama’s budget) and macho talk (e.g. “carpet bomb” the Islamic State) has come back to haunt him as the party turned more hawkish.

Second, it helps if your opponent is unliked. No one in the Senate is popping up to defend Cruz on crop insurance or national security flip-flops. Only anti-immigration zealot Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is sticking up for him on legalization. In Trump’s words: “Nobody likes him, nobody in Congress likes him, nobody likes him anywhere once they get to know him.” When you are under assault it always helps to have friends.

Third, it is most effective when one can take a candidate’s purported strength — ideological purity — and turn it against him. In this way one’s opponent not only has to defend himself from attacks but cannot find shelter in his “go-to” issue. Cruz incessantly says he stands and fights while weak-kneed, unprincipled Republicans take the expedient route. Cruz cannot talk about accomplishments (he has none) or experience (four years in the Senate) or innovative policies (he seems not to care about the content of his proposals), and now ideological purity is problematic. So what, again, is his selling point?

Fourth, as Cruz put in the debate, even if “half” of what Rubio or others say about Cruz is true (and it looks like a much higher percentage is), then the overall attack — Cruz is a slick hypocrite — stands. Moreover, even when friendly press tries to exonerate Cruz the topic of discussion remains: Is Cruz an opportunist? When you are explaining, as they say, you are losing.

On one hand, it is surprising Cruz did not see this coming. On the other hand this is his first very competitive election and his first on a national scale. Many arrogant candidates have underestimated how tough this can be.

Cruz has many strengths still going for him, including an excellent ground operation, evangelical outreach and a segment of apologists in the conservative media looking for the most respectable right-winger to boost. All of that is likely enough to keep Iowa in his column, but if that slips from his grasp or if he lacks a similar organizational power in other early states, Cruz’s prospects will dim.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...t-may-pay-off/

Two-Faced Marco Rubio Turns Back On DREAMers As He Wants Obama To End DACA

By: Justin Baragona
Thursday, July, 24th, 2014

On Thursday, after meeting with leaders of Central American countries on Capitol Hill, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a statement where he called on President Obama to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that the president enacted in 2012. Per Rubio’s press release, DACA is one of the main reasons why the United States has seen a huge uptick in migrant children from Central America in the past year. While the presidents of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala reiterated in their visit to Washington that violence and drug trafficking in their countries is a key driver behind the exodus of young refugees, Rubio decided that Thursday’s meeting presented a ripe opportunity to blame President Obama for this humanitarian crisis.Below are key excerpts from Rubio’s press release, courtesy of his Senate website:

“For reasons of national security and economic prosperity, the U.S. has a clear interest in helping Central American countries become safe and stable communities built on strong foundations of democracy, the rule of law and free enterprise. Unfortunately, the recent wave of illegal immigration has reminded us of how fragile these foundations are in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, allowing drug cartels and violent criminals to wreak havoc on these countries and dim their people’s hopes of a better future.

“The U.S. must also make clear that the Deferred Action program, or any law or policy for that matter, does not and will not apply to any recent arrivals. Furthermore, because the recent wave from Central America spiked after DACA was announced, it is in our interest to wind down this program. If you are not currently in it, you should not be eligible for it. For President Obama to raise hopes it may actually be unilaterally expanded is irresponsible and threatens to make this problem even worse.

“As Congress prepares to consider spending proposals to address these problems, we need to make sure that there are adequate resources to deal with the ongoing wave in an expeditious and humanitarian manner, while also providing lasting solutions that discourage illegal immigration. This includes additional fencing, manpower and technology resources on the southwest border, as well as stronger interior enforcement provisions.”

Essentially, with this statement, Rubio told his fellow Republicans that he is no longer for any lasting immigration reform. On top of that, he let the DREAMers know that he no longer supports their desire to finally become citizens of the United States. With the GOP presidential primary season coming up soon, Rubio has to do his hard-shift to the right and appeal to the uber-conservative base of the Republican Party if he is to have any chance of winning the nomination. With conservative pundits like Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh having already called him out on his role in drafting the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill that was passed by the Upper Chamber with bipartisan support last year, Rubio figured it is time to turn his back on the image he had created as a pro-reform Republican.

This week, Rubio has made a concerted effort to reach out to conservatives and remind them he can be just as bigoted, hateful and closed-minded as any of the other potential 2016 Republican candidates. On Wednesday, he spoke at the Catholic University of America and reasserted his positions on same-sex marriage and abortion. Rubio also emphasized that social conservatives are the real victims when it comes to the debate on marriage equality since those who seek tolerance won’t tolerate the right’s intolerance.

Therefore, with his full-throated appeal already made to the religious right, it comes as no shock that Rubio would distance himself from immigration reform. Obviously, he has calculated that he needs to appeal to old white people if he wants to get through the GOP primary. If by some miracle of miracles he’s able to make it through, or perhaps get on the ticket as the VP candidate, he probably thinks he can do an ‘Etch-A-Sketch’ and shift back to being more progressive on immigration reform, where he’ll emphasize that he supports a pathway to citizenship and that Republicans need to be more compassionate and sympathetic to the plight of immigrants.

Until that time comes, though, Rubio will keep railing against ‘amnesty,’ DACA, the Senate’s bill that he helped write and anything else that the President even slightly supports. Rubio will pretend he didn’t actually work on a Republican alternative to the DREAM Act that would have done much of what we’ve seen take place with DACA. He’ll just brush it off as he’s done recently when called out on his apparent hypocrisy over his criticism of Obama’s immigration policies. Rubio will sound just like any other Republican candidate out there. After all, it is all about out-crazying the crazies during the clown show known as the GOP presidential primary.

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/...bama-daca.html