He's on the wrong side of too many issues that matter to Latinos.
Sen. Marco Rubio will release his memoir, An American Son in June. In what his publisher is billing as an inspirational story, the Florida Republican writes about his family's emigration from Cuba and details the sacrifices that his working-class parents made so he could succeed. "The American Dream," Rubio writes, "is still alive for those who pursue it."
It may seem surprising that Rubio is releasing his memoir at the relatively young age of 41. Or that he took the time to write it, considering his only legislative accomplishment at the national level has been co-sponsoring a resolution that designated September as "National Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month."
Still, there's no doubt that Rubio is a rising star. He's even been called "the Crown Prince of the Tea Party." Rubio is a strong candidate to be presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's running mate. Other prominent Republicans, such as fellow Floridian Jeb Bush, have stated that Rubio would make a great vice presidential candidate.
Rubio is popular with Republicans because the party recognizes that it needs to do something to attract a bigger share of the Hispanic vote. Republicans have increasingly alienated Latino voters with ugly rhetoric and extreme positions on immigration, ceding the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group to candidates running on the Democratic ticket. President Barack Obama won two-thirds of the Latino vote in 2008, for example. With Rubio on the ticket, the GOP's thinking goes, Republicans can win more Hispanic votes.
The problem is that Republicans are assuming Hispanics will be attracted to Rubio simply because he's Cuban-American. But trust me, Latinos don't vote based on ethnicity. We vote on policies. And Rubio's on the wrong side of too many issues that matter to the Hispanic community.
For example, Rubio supports SB 1070, Arizona's "papers, please" law, and is opposed to any form of "amnesty" for undocumented immigrants. He opposes the DREAM Act, which would allow undocumented youth brought to the United States as children to legalize their status if they get a college degree or serve in the military -- despite that fact that 91 percent of Latinos support it. In 2009, during his successful bid to become a U.S. senator, Rubio even opposed Sonia Sotomayor's historic Supreme Court nomination.
Rubio's ultra-conservative views are out of step with the Hispanic mainstream. According to a November 2011 poll by Latino Decisions, Hispanics are progressive voters. By clear majorities, we support Obama's Affordable Care Act, favor greater government spending to revive the economy, and believe that restoring higher taxes on the wealthy is a good way to fix the deficit.
Not only does Rubio oppose all of these ideas, he once announced that social programs like Medicare and Social Security have "weakened us as a people."
True, Rubio is a charismatic speaker with a bright future. However, he would make a deeply flawed vice presidential candidate. In contrast to his calls for fiscal responsibility, he's had trouble living within his own means. The Wall Street Journal once referred to his financial troubles as "epic." He nearly lost one of his homes to foreclosure. As a Florida state representative, he was dogged by allegations that he improperly used his GOP credit card for personal expenses. More recently, Rubio was caught embellishing his family history. He had long claimed that his parents were exiles who fled Castro's Cuba, but a Washington Post investigation discovered that they actually left in 1956, three years before Fidel came to power.
I don't see Rubio's story as inspirational. Despite his background as the son of immigrants, he's unwilling to allow other immigrants their chance at the American Dream. He has squandered his opportunity to be a voice of reason within the Republican Party. He has placed his personal ambition before the interests of the Hispanic community. And since he hasn't shown any willingness to support his fellow Latinos, why should I or any other Latino voter support him?
Cross-posted at OtherWords.Org
Follow Raul A. Reyes on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RaulAReyes
Jose Antonio Vargas: SB 1070: How Do You Define American?
http://hispanic.cc/luis_gutierrez_labels_marco_rubio_extremist_hypocrite.htm
'Luis Gutierrez Labels Marco Rubio Extremist Hypocrite
WASHINGTON & SANTA FE, NM (Dream Act Info) June 16, 2011 ― Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) haven't met before. But Gutierrez, one of the House's most passionate pro-immigration advocates, is getting personal with the freshman tea-party senator, labeling him an "extremist" and saying his Cuban-born parents benefitted from the same type of "generous" immigration policies that Rubio opposes.
"I can't think of a more generous immigration policy than the one his parents benefitted from," Gutierrez, a liberal from Chicago of Puerto Rican descent, told POLITICO on Wednesday. "All they had to do was show up."...'
http://www.zimbio.com/President+of+Cuba+Fidel+Castro/articles/BbGpcngYkyn/Marco+Rubio+fairy+tale+Cuban+emigration
The Cuban-American Welfare State
'...In order to provide aid to recently arrived Cuban immigrants, the United States Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966. The Cuban Refugee Program provided more than $1.3 billion of direct financial assistance. These immigrants were eligible for public assistance, Medicare, free English courses,scholarships, and low-interest college loans. ...'
A Pre-Emptive Strike On A Good Man
It is clearly obvious that we have another political operative like Raul to begin weaving a Big Lie around Senator Rubio's character. Because Obama will need the hispanic vote to have a chance in the south he has had David The Axe Man initiate a plan to start early on a potential VP rival. Although Raul has not bee granted the same kind of access as Hiliary Rosen to the administration but that lack of access what makes this seem so unplanned considering he hispanic and works for a prominent media giant. Oh look close their is a connection-NBC who received favored contracts and access to the White House. I guess it is time for the NBC CEO to pay up-another Faustian tale of Lucifer at work..
Warm regards,
Michael Winters
I am sure they feel the need to do this because o'l Joe is a definite wild card and needs all the help he can get...
Sure all of a sudden Latinos will wake up on November 6,2012 and fall in love with their haters.Get real.
Close inspection will prove his tinkering with reality. Not such a bad thing
if you're sole purpose is to sell your book, devastating when running for high
office.
He's history, long before he's made any.
The one advantage Rubio has over the rest of this little Potemkin Village of "minorities" is that he's not so obviously whackadoodle. He does, however, attempt to hide his myriad of problems, like them, behind good looks and an ability to spur on the Right Wing with talking points but without facts.
Witness his "escape from Castro" myth, because that's what resonates with the Cuban-American community. That myth. As if Batista reigned over a beautiful, peaceful, free island rather than the Mafia, CIA, and corporate owned dicatatorship that it was. Cuba, pre-Castro, is a beautiful memory if you were in government, or a casino or plantation owner. If you were just a Cuban...not so much. He could have presented his family history as closer to the truth; coming to American for a better life, even escaping the gross inequality of life under Batista, but that doesn't reflect what America believes about Cuba.
McCain made The Mistake with Palin. Perhaps Romney will do the same and choose Rubio.
Shhhhh...don't tell them. :-)
He's spending thousands of dollars to clean up his record.
What's more fascinating is the GOP's near-obsession with flash-in-the-pan imagery in its national candidates. Think Fred 'Law And Order' Thompson, Rudy 'America's Mayor' Giuliani, Paul 'Bold Budget' Ryan, Herman 'Nine-Nine-Nine' Cain — among others — and, now, Marco 'He's-Young-And-Latino' Rubio. The list goes on.
The GOP is so hooked on the marketing model that it long ago stopped screening its own senior bench in deference to the media's flavor of the week.
I suppose we should be grateful.