No One With a Brain is Afraid of Incompetent Marco

Marco Rubio's campaign team deserves a raise. Somehow, Rubio has not won any of the first three primaries, but yet he is "one of the final three," and viewed by many as "the likely nominee." He finishes third in Iowa and second in South Carolina, and gives "victory" speeches after both. They have convinced major figures in the GOP to endorse Rubio, and have all of official Republican Washington pushing as hard as possible to get him to the front of the pack. Again, all of this with no victories. All of this with no real talent.

You see, when Marco Rubio dropped his whopper debate performance in New Hampshire, a lot of other people acted shocked. I was not amongst them. I view Marco as an idiot, a person not capable of getting through a general election campaign, or for that matter, probably the primary. That Marco had his brain lock-up on stage isn't a shock at all, if you've listened to this guy talk. Way back, months ago, a Gawker article summed up Rubio perfectly:

This queer store-bought concept of newness is Rubio's shtick. "Yesterday is over, and we are never going back," Rubio said to canned cheers yesterday upon announcing his candidacy, just after attacking Democrats for "looking backward" and before declaring that his novel vision of a future America involved militarism, banning abortion, school vouchers, and celebration of "family—not government."

It was obvious last Spring that Rubio was an idiot, long before he started talking about "a clash of civilizations" with Islam, but he sells well. First off, the media likes that he is young, Hispanic, and Republican, so he is somehow "different." Second, his opposition in this race is either crazy (Trump and Cruz), boring (Bush and Kasich), or irrelevant (Carson). Third, the media keeps insisting he has something in common with Barack Obama, because apparently both of them are young (never mind that one was a Harvard law grad and the other is Marco Rubio). The fact that someone this stupid can get this close should scare anyone who doesn't want a neanderthal for a President. It does scare me, to the extent that elections are unpredictable and anything can happen. He really doesn't scare me though.

First off, let's be clear, Marco Rubio is nothing new. Rubio has flip-flopped from supporting an Iran Nuclear Deal to saying he'd back out of it. He has flip-flopped on his own immigration reform legislation, and now opposes it. He has called for a basic war with Islam. He's a foreign policy illiterate. Unfortunately, he's even more ridiculous on domestic policy. He pushed through Florida's "Scarlet Letter Law," forcing mothers who want to put their children up for adoption to publish their sexual history in the paper (for real). He's pro-life, even in cases of rape and incest, a flip-flop from his previous positions. He bought a gun to "defend his family from ISIS," in case you thought he might be a reasonable person on gun rights. He does not support universal background checks. He proposes huge tax-cuts for the wealthy, not unlike Republicans have for forty years, while pushing a "consumption" tax. Marco Rubio also opposes virtually all LGBT rights, including the settled matter of marriage equality. His record on women's rights, both at work and in the health care world, is awful.

In other words, Marco Rubio is no different than Mitt Romney:

But strip away Rubio’s rags-to-presidential contender biography, and his candidacy has more than a little in common with Romney’s — from policy platforms that are largely in sync to a brain trust that boasts a number of the same key figures. When it comes to the substance of what he’d try to do in the job, at least, Rubio is not promising a sharp break from the last establishment favorite the party put forward.

"I think that they are very much on the same place on most of the issues," Vin Weber, a former House member and special adviser to Romney in 2012, said. On foreign policy, taxes and economic growth, “their positions are very similar, and on most of the other domestic and social issues they come down the same place as well.”

He's really no different than any other recent Republican, either. He's pro-gun, anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-tax cuts for the rich, pro-war, pro-school vouchers, and anti-immigration, to name a few issues he's just a basic Republican. There is no moderation to him. In fact, he's probably more conservative than past conservative candidates we've faced. In short, there's nothing new here.

So, is he just a better candidate? Well, he certainly wasn't better in New Hampshire. Going all the way back to the Fall, the Republican elite in Washington have tried to boost him up to the front of the field. They realize that Trump and Cruz are dangerous bets for them, and that the other candidates have no real energy. The guy has had every major endorsement, particularly in South Carolina, and still has yet to win a single primary, and it will probably take all the GOP's establishment has to knock down either Trump or Cruz enough to get Marco to the finish line. Every time they get Marco close to the front, he gets in his own way. Whether it's not showing up to work, or a bad debate, things keep coming up for him.

I get it- Marco Rubio isn't the cookie-cutter, old white guy Republican candidate. He's younger and claims to be cool, and while I don't believe that, it gives reporters something different to write. The problem with Rubio is that he's all sizzle and no steak. He's a cookie-cutter Republican in terms of what he will do if elected. The myth that he's a political genius is undercut by the struggle he's having getting to the nomination. I don't see anything to fear.

Don't get me wrong, I do fear the idea of Rubio being President- I think he would be the worst President of anyone running. He's crazy on foreign and domestic policy, and he's the most corrupt candidate out there, actually being personally bankrolled by billionaires. The guy is incapable, which is scary. I just fear Trump, particularly, more as a candidate. He's further outside of the box, and therefore not as obvious in how to oppose him. If our Democratic nominee runs a good campaign, they will beat Marco Rubio. Marco does not scare me as a potential candidate at all.