mykeystrokes.com

"Do or Do not. There is no try."

“Taking Down Marco Rubio Is Easier Than You Think”: His Moderate Style Doesn’t Match His Extreme Policies

It’s silly to pretend otherwise: As a Democrat, I’d rather run against Ted Cruz than Marco Rubio.

But that’s like saying I’d rather run against herpes than Marco Rubio. Of course I would. I don’t care that Ted Cruz may be smart and strategic. He’s also creepy and cruel, according to just about everyone who’s ever had the misfortune of knowing him for longer than 10 minutes.

I’d also rather run against Donald Trump than Marco Rubio. Again, obvious. But for me, less so than Cruz. Trump isn’t quite as easily caricatured as a cartoon villain. Before his current role as America’s most overexposed xenophobe, he was a celebrity con man whose job was getting people to like and trust him against all odds. Trump is a loser now after Iowa, and perhaps for good, but he is also unpredictable, unscripted, and unafraid to torch the establishment of which he was once a member. There’s no zealot like a convert in search of voters.

Rubio is none of these things—which is why the more I think about him as a potential GOP nominee, the less scared I get.

Rubio would certainly start with some strengths. His youth, background, story, and ability to tell that story will generate another round of fawning media coverage of Rubio as the Republican Obama (hence the echoes of Obama’s Iowa speech in Rubio’s). He will be called the Democrats’ Worst Nightmare by so many annoying pundits, who will quote from the latest Gravis Marketing/Insider Advantage/Outback Steakhouse™ poll that shows Rubio capturing 85.5 percent of the Latino vote and all Americans under 30.

Because Trump and Cruz have moved the goalposts on what it means to be bat-shit crazy in a primary, the press will confuse Rubio’s moderate temperament with moderate policies, of which he has none. Rubio was once described as the “crown prince” of the Tea Party. He has a 100 percent rating from the NRA. He’ll appoint justices who will overturn the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision. He opposes abortion with no exception for rape or incest. He opposes stem cell research and doesn’t believe in climate change. He’d send ground troops to Syria and trillions in tax cuts to the rich.

On immigration, who knows what Rubio will do next—and that’s kind of the point. In the primary, his experimentation with legalization has been an issue of loyalty to the Republican base. If he makes it to the general, it will be a character issue. When he ran for Senate, Rubio said he opposed citizenship for undocumented immigrants. When he got to the Senate, Rubio helped write a bill that supported citizenship for undocumented immigrants. When Rubio’s presidential ambitions were then threatened by a conservative revolt, he renounced his own bill.

This is such an easy story to tell. It’s such an easy story to understand. It’s not so different from when John Kerry voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it—a flip-flop that helped sink his 2004 campaign. Beyond Washington, Rubio’s dance on immigration won’t be seen as shrewd, it will be seen as cowardly and self-serving—basically, what people have come to expect from establishment politicians.

And that’s who Rubio really is, isn’t he? He’s been in elected office for most of his life. He’s not just cozy with lobbyists—he was registered as one. He’s cautious and guarded, a little too slick and overly rehearsed. Chris Christie has taken to calling him “bubble boy” for avoiding questions in favor of his stump speech. Then there was a New Hampshire reporter’s brutal description of Rubio’s interview with The Conway Daily Sun: “It was like watching a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points. He said a lot but at the same time said nothing. It was like someone wound him up, pointed him toward the doors and pushed ‘play.’ If there was a human side to the senator, a soul, it didn’t come across.”

Rubio’s campaign is based on the premise that he’s a new kind of leader for the next generation in a “New American Century.” And certainly, he looks the part and knows the lines. He’s young, charismatic, and never misses a chance to tell us how much cool rap music is on his iPad, even if no one asked (also, Pitbull isn’t cool).

But as a general election candidate, Rubio would combine everything people hate about Washington politics with everything they hate about Republican policies. He may be more formidable and disciplined than some of his nuttier rivals, but he will also be utterly predictable and conventional. We Democrats have won that kind of election before. We can do it again.

 

By: Jon Favreau, The Daily Beast, February 5, 2016

February 6, 2016 Posted by | Donald Trump, GOP Presidential Candidates, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Who’s The Ugly Loser Now?”: Trump’s Moment Of Magnanimity Did Not Last Very Long

For a brief moment on Monday night, as he took the stage in Iowa to acknowledge that he came in second in the state caucuses, Donald Trump was surprisingly gracious. He was clearly unhappy with the results but seemed to accept them with equanimity and didn’t blame anyone else for his failure or call into question the legitimacy of the democratic process.

That moment of magnanimity did not last very long. By Tuesday morning, he started sending off a series of bitter, petulant tweets that made clear that he could not accept his loss and was looking for a scapegoat to kill. The crescendo of whining reached a peak Wednesday morning when he argued that winning candidate Ted Cruz had stolen the victory. In a series of tweets, he came across as an embittered loser, which endangers the brand he has worked so hard to create.

It could be argued that Trump’s sour grapes gambit is a smart move to recapture the media spotlight, and to rally his dispirited supporters by showing that he has a fighting heart—that he remains a pugilist who is willing to do whatever it takes to win. Accusations that the winner is a cheater are not unknown in the world of pro wrestling, a shaping force in Trump’s aggressive persona. And it could be that some of Trump’s fan base will take his lead and double-down.

Trump might also be muddying the waters of the Iowa election to shore up his support in New Hampshire, where he has a strong lead. Accusations that Cruz cheated are a way to staunch any flow of voters deserting Trump for Cruz and Rubio. Moreover, by bringing Carson into the fold as a fellow aggrieved victim, Trump gives another set of voters who might move to Cruz a reason to hate him.

Trump benefits from the fact that his complaint against Cruz has an element of truth to it, even though overstated with Trumpian hyperbole. The Cruz campaign did send out a mailer made to look like a government document in order to coerce voters, which was unethical and fraudulent. His campaign staff also told caucusgoers that Carson was dropping out of the race. It’s doubtful whether these tactics explains the margin of victory, given Cruz’s overwhelming superiority in ground game (a political concept that Trump himself admits he’s only recently heard about).

But Trump’s Twitter whine is more likely to hurt him. It prevents him from moving on from Iowa and keeps his loss in the news. Moreover, being a sore loser hurts one of Trump’s main arguments: that he’s tough, and a winner. Trump is supposed to be a shrewd guy who knows how to make his way among the killers of the world. But now he’s admitted that he was snookered (if not schlonged) by a weasel like Ted Cruz.

There is a way for tough guys to lose and make a comeback, which is by recasting themselves as heroic underdogs who are fighting against the odds, like Rocky Balboa. On the one hand, it should be easy for Trump to present himself as an underdog: As he rightly points out, he’s a political rookie and doesn’t have the large outside funding available to the other top-tier candidates. So it is remarkable he came in second, beating out experienced pols like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie. And considering that Trump had no real ground game, the fact that he was only 4 percent behind Cruz is remarkable. So the post-Iowa pitch Trump could make is clear: I’m a rookie who came close to winning in Iowa, I learn from my mistakes, and I’m going to win in New Hampshire.

But to cast himself as an underdog goes against every grain of Trump’s persona. Last month, Vox’s David Robert argued Trump’s pose as a winner is brittle, and doesn’t allow him to handle defeat well:

He can’t modulate, can’t do humility, can’t abide the thought of anyone above him. All his claims, all his stories, all his insults are yuge, the best you’ll find anywhere.

The same belligerence that looked like strength when Trump was on top will look defensive and bitter when he’s not. And the more doubtful or skeptical voters and the media become, the more Trump will escalate, the more his chest will puff. He doesn’t know any other strategy. He’ll enter a negative spiral as self-reinforcing as his rise has been.

At the time, I was skeptical of this analysis, thinking that Trump could remake himself as a defeated but spirited boxer. But given Trump’s Twitter meltdown this week, Roberts’s analysis holds up well. Trapped in his mask as a winner, Trump can’t adopt the best guise to make a comeback.

 

By: Jeet Heer, The New Republic, February 3, 2016

February 5, 2016 Posted by | Iowa Caucuses, Ted Cruz | , , , , | 1 Comment

“Amazing Pretense Of A Third-Place Finisher”: When A Candidate Takes A ‘Victory Lap’ Without A Victory

In 1992, then-Gov. Bill Clinton faced brutal headwinds ahead of the New Hampshire primary. Rocked by controversy and personal allegations, the Arkansas Democrat was written off, dismissed as a candidate who would have to drop out sooner rather than later.

And yet, on Primary Night, there was Clinton, making a memorable declaration: “New Hampshire has made Bill Clinton the Comeback Kid.” What’s less memorable is the fact that Clinton actually lost that primary. In fact, Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.) beat Clinton in New Hampshire by more than eight points. But because so many assumed Clinton would get crushed, his second-place showing seemed like a triumph.

It serves as a reminder that, as odd as this sounds, candidates don’t necessarily have to win to seem like they won.

What we haven’t seen, however, is a third-place finisher pretend to have scored an amazing victory. That is, until this week.

After losing to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in the Iowa caucuses Monday night, Marco Rubio told supporters, “This is the moment they said would never happen!” It was, of course, the moment literally everyone said would inevitably happen – Rubio was supposed to finish third in Iowa and he did.

But pesky details like election results notwithstanding, the Florida senator launched a strategy in which he’d simply act as if he’d won, and expect the political media, which often seems overly fond of Rubio, to simply play along with the charade.

Which is exactly what’s happening. Paul Waldman highlighted some gems yesterday

[T]oday’s headlines tell us of “Marco Rubio’s very big night in Iowa,” to “Forget Ted Cruz: Marco Rubio is the big winner of the Iowa caucuses,” that “After Iowa, keep your eye on Marco Rubio, not Trump or Cruz,” and “Why the Iowa caucus was a win for Marco Rubio, even though he lost to Ted Cruz.”

No wonder Rubio took a “victory lap” yesterday without an actual victory – which ordinarily would seem like a prerequisite to a victory lap.

Perhaps my favorite headline of all was published by the Wall Street Journal: “Rubio’s Rise Amid Trump’s Slump.” Remember, Rubio and Trump faced off in the same contest, in the same state, at the same time. Trump won more votes. Pundits don’t care.

It’s true, of course, that expectations shape perceptions, but Ted Cruz was expected to lose Iowa before actually winning the whole contest – a fact Rubio’s cheerleaders have deemed unimportant.

Why in the world is this happening? Waldman tried to explain this bizarre dynamic:

Rubio is a good speaker, is pretty informed about policy, and has a heartwarming personal story about his immigrant parents. When those journalists and commentators say so, and write stories describing how Rubio’s campaign is about to blossom, they’re expressing their faith in the process. Regardless of their personal ideology, they’d like to believe that this whole chaotic mess eventually winds up in a somewhat rational place. If the GOP nominates Rubio, it’s proof that the process works and one of our two great parties has not completely lost its mind. […]

[W]hether they’re consciously aware of it or not, most people in the media would probably prefer Trump to fall eventually, after we’ve all been thoroughly entertained by his candidacy. Rubio as the GOP nominee might not be as much fun, but it makes sense.

I’d argue with Waldman about Rubio being “pretty informed about policy,” but otherwise, his take sounds about right.

It’s unnerving to see so much of the political world simply pretend on behalf of its preferred candidate, expecting the hype to become self-fulfilling, but there’s a decent chance it’ll work.

 

By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 3, 2016

February 4, 2016 Posted by | Donald Trump, Iowa Caucuses, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz | , , , , | 1 Comment

“When A Candidate Becomes A Media Darling”: Media Hype Creates Strange Expectations For Rubio

For much of Saturday, the political world was treated to the latest in a series of rounds of Marco Rubio Media Hype, featuring breathless stories about the senator’s “surge,” “momentum,” and inevitable “rise.” Credible new polling suggested the fawning coverage was misplaced, which curtailed the hype – for about an hour or two before it began anew.

This Politico piece, published yesterday, captured the oddity of the expectations surrounding the Florida senator’s prospects in Iowa, where the article claims Rubio “can lose to [Ted] Cruz on Monday and walk away looking like the winner.”

Somehow, against all the evidence, Rubio has successfully spun that he’s gunning only for third place here. In sharp contrast, Cruz’s campaign, touting its superior ground game, has openly pined for and predicted victory.

The result: In the closing hours before Monday’s caucuses, Iowa is suddenly fraught with risk for Cruz while Rubio, who sits comfortably in third in most public and private polling, is almost guaranteed to meet or beat diminished expectations.

My point is not to pick on Politico. On the contrary, this approach has quickly become the conventional wisdom across many news organizations and much of the political world.

What’s odd is why anyone would choose to see the race this way. When Politico says Team Rubio has “successfully spun … against all evidence,” it helps capture a curious dynamic: the media is effectively admitting that the media has come to believe something the media knows isn’t true, but will pretend is true anyway, for reasons no one wants to talk about.

As recently as mid-November – hardly ancient history – Rubio’s own campaign manager talked on the record about his belief that the senator might actually win the Iowa caucuses.

Barely two months later, however, we’re now supposed to believe that a third-place finish – which is to say, a loss – would be a great, momentum-creating triumph. It’s a claim that we’re all supposed to simply play along with, because the Hype Machine says so.

Coverage of campaigns can get downright weird when a candidate becomes a media darling.

For the record, I’m not saying Rubio will finish third; he might do significantly better. My point is we’re watching a silly “narrative” take root before voting even begins: a GOP candidate who expected to finish first in Iowa will have actually “won” if he comes in third, based on “spin” literally everyone involved recognizes as insincere nonsense.

There’s no reason to treat such assumptions as serious analysis.

Postscript: Just as an aside, if Rubio ends up doing very well in Iowa – or very well by the standards of pundits inclined to present the results in the most favorable light possible – future candidates may decide they don’t have to spend that much time in the Hawkeye State.

Remember, Rubio deliberately took a gamble on a risky path: fewer events, fewer on-the-ground staffers, a smaller field operation, more reliance on TV and packing in a bunch of appearances in the closing weeks. If that works for him, others will follow the example, and the Iowa caucuses may see some dramatic changes going forward.

 

By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 1, 2016

February 2, 2016 Posted by | Donald Trump, Iowa Caucuses, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz | , , , | Leave a comment

“Ted Cruz’s ‘Flat Out Lie’ On Immigration”: How Do You Say Hypocrite In Spanish? Do You Know? It’s Ted Cruz

For Latino Republicans who have known Ted Cruz over the last 15 years, the candidate stumping across the country on an anti-immigration platform is not the rising talent they once worked with on the George W. Bush campaign, in the Bush administration, and then as Texas Solicitor General.

The Ted Cruz of those years was a whip-smart and audaciously ambitious lawyer who lent his considerable intellectual heft to the policies many Latino Republicans cared most about, including immigration reform. But during a CNN debate in December, as Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio clashed over Cruz’s past positions on offering legal status to undocumented immigrants, Cruz said definitively, “I’ve never supported legalization, I do not intend to support it.”

Weeks later, Cruz doubled down, explaining to Fox News’ Bret Baier that he tried to amend the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” comprehensive immigration reform bill not to pass it, but to doom it to defeat. “Bret, you’ve been around Washington long enough, you know how to defeat bad legislation.”

And with that, Cruz’s bridge back to his former colleagues in Latino Republican circles began to burn.

“It’s just a flat out lie. Period,” said Robert De Posada. “There’s just no truth behind it.”

De Posada is a former Director of Hispanic Affairs for the RNC and founder of the Latino Coalition, a conservative Latino organization that worked with the Bush administration unsuccessfully to pass immigration reform. “My criticism is that Cruz can say, ‘Things have changed and I’ve changed my position.’ But don’t sit here and flat out lie that you have never been for legalization when the facts are very clear.”

The facts, according to De Posada and several Republicans who worked with Cruz in Washington and Texas, are that in Cruz’s past work for Bush and later as a board member of the Washington-based Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute, Cruz helped craft policies to allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the country and pursue legal status.

None of those efforts included granting automatic amnesty to undocumented workers, but it is clear in the minds of his former colleagues that finding a way to offer immigrants a way to remain in the United States and gain legal status was central to the work Cruz did.

A former Bush administration official who worked with Cruz during the 2000 campaign and later as a part of an interdepartmental White House working group on immigration remembered Cruz as an aggressive member of the teams tasked with creating a framework to pass Bush’s pro-immigration agenda. The position Cruz holds today was not in play in those years, the official said, in sometimes deeply personal terms.

“How do you say hypocrite in Spanish? Do you know? It’s Ted Cruz,” the former official said. “To know Ted is to hate Ted.”

The official described Cruz’s role on the Bush immigration agenda as working as a liaison between the office of public liaison and the White House’s policy shop. “He wanted to bring immigrants out of the shadows,” the official said. “That’s changed since the campaign and changed since the White House days. But of course it has. If it suits Ted, he’s for it. If it doesn’t, he’s against it.”

“It’s a disappointment,” said the official, who, like many of the people interviewed for this piece, referenced Cruz’s natural intelligence. “I think Ted could do a lot of good if he had a soul.”

But before the White House, Cruz worked in Texas as a policy adviser for the Bush presidential campaign, including on Bush’s plans for immigration reform.

When Charles Foster, a prominent Houston immigration lawyer, was tapped to draft Bush’s plan, he said he was told the campaign had a team of bright young lawyers to work with him. “One of them, named Ted Cruz, had in his bailiwick of issues immigration and he would be my contact with the campaign,” Foster said.

Together, Foster and Cruz worked for nine months drafting what would become the immigration principles of the Bush campaign and eventually the White House. The plan would not include amnesty like Ronald Reagan’s blanket legalization program, which immediately put undocumented immigrants in line for citizenship. But Bush would push for a path to legal status, an aggressive temporary worker program, and a requirement that undocumented workers who stayed in the United States would go to the back of the line for citizenship.

Foster remembers Cruz as a “very hands on” professional who never raised objections to the policies. “I assumed Ted was supportive of Gov. Bush’s positions, but I honestly can’t remember asking Ted if he agreed with the position and personally supported it. I assume he did, but we were like lawyers representing the interests of our client.”

After the campaign and two years in the Bush administration, Cruz moved home to Texas to become the state’s Solicitor General in 2003. Once in Texas, he joined the board of advisers for HAPI, a group of Latino conservatives that included George P. Bush, former members of Congress, and multiple veterans of the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations.

While Cruz was a member of the board and its policy committee, HAPI advocated conservative positions to an array of issues, including its opposition to both climate change legislation and the Affordable Care Act. On immigration, HAPI strongly advocated for a path to legalization, including President Bush’s principles for immigration reform, as well as the 2006 McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill.

“It’s just bullshit,” said a former member of the HAPI when asked about Cruz’s contention that he never supported legalization. “That’s what pisses us all off. Don’t throw us under the bus for legalization and not take on the nativists and the crazies when you wrote the language. Stand for something.”

The former HAPI board member, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely, described Cruz as a fully engaged member of the group. Cruz co-chaired a 2005 event featuring Gov. Rick Perry and served as a keynote speaker for two of the group’s events. And because of Cruz’s legal expertise, board members said they relied on him to do the first draft of policy positions, including HAPI’s support for immigration reform. When he ran for Senate in 2012, HAPI hosted a fundraiser to support his candidacy.

In the 2012 campaign for Senate, Cruz’s role at HAPI became the subject of a bitter disagreement between Cruz and David Dewhurst, then the lieutenant governor of Texas and Cruz’s opponent in the Senate primary race. The Dewhurst campaign accused Cruz of “leading two organizations that support amnesty,” a position that neither HAPI nor the other group ever supported. But members of HAPI’s board insist that legalization for undocumented immigrants was always unequivocally a part of its platform.

HAPI no longer exists, but Cruz has gone on to become its most famous and potentially most powerful former member, an end to the story that many of his fellow Latino Republicans lament.

“When he went so far as to say he’s never been for legalizing, that’s where he crossed the line and lost people like me,” said Robert De Posada. “It’s a character issue where a lot of us are just like, ‘Um, no.’”

 

By: Patricia Murphy, The Daily Beast, January 28, 2016

February 1, 2016 Posted by | Immigration Reform, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »