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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Rubio is not a Republican Obama. And that’s his problem. Rubio is not a Republican Obama. And that’s his problem. Matt Bai National Political Columnist December 31, 2015 One of the most frequent refrains among Republican voters this year is that Barack Obama was tragically unprepared for the office when he was elected president. And this, more than anything else, is proving to be a problem for Marco Rubio, whose resume in government closely mirrors the president’s, and who has been compared to Obama from the moment he entered the national consciousness in 2010. Most often, Rubio tries to head off this comparison by repeatedly and acidly berating Obama, as if desperate to get across that, despite the obvious parallels, he’s really nothing like that other guy. “We are not a weak country, and we are not a weak people,” I heard Rubio tell audiences when I spent time with him in Iowa this week. “We just happen to have a weak president.” A few days earlier, in New Hampshire, he tried a very different tack, telling an audience that “a liberal Democrat would say Barack Obama has been a pretty influential president,” before going on to list Obama’s considerable accomplishments. The message here being that Rubio is like Bizarro Obama — similarly gifted but ideologically opposite. In fact, it seems to me that Republican fears about Rubio’s youth and inexperience are probably misplaced. His real problem isn’t so much that he closely resembles the candidate Obama was, but more that he doesn’t. When I interviewed Rubio in April, a few weeks before he announced his candidacy, he previewed for me a pitch that was largely premised on bringing about the same kind of generational transition in Republican politics that Obama had in his own party. “I believe that the Republican Party has an opportunity in 2016 to do something it hasn’t been able to do in a long time, and that is make the argument that we’re the party of the future, that we are the party that understands the 21st century and understands what it takes to make America great in the 21st century,” he told me. Back then, of course, Rubio seemed to be drawing a sharp past-versus-future contrast with the two candidates he thought most likely to stand in his path: 62-year-old Jeb Bush and 68-year-old Hillary Clinton. He wasn’t betting then that his real problem wouldn’t be Bush, but rather Ted Cruz, another first-term, Cuban-American senator, who at 45 is only a year older than Rubio. He wouldn’t have imagined that Donald Trump, with a kind of ghoulishly ageless appeal, would take Rubio’s “make America great” thing and make it his own. Rubio still makes his generational case, but the meaning now is murkier. When I met up with him in Pella, Iowa, Wednesday, he was speaking in front of a busily designed blue banner, on which were listed a long series of meaningless phrases: “New American Century. Renewed American Values. New American Jobs. Renewed American Education. New American Leadership.” And so on. Later, in a conversation aboard his campaign bus, I asked Rubio if his generational argument still seemed relevant. “The generational choice has always been about our ideas, about whether we we’re going to confront 21st-century issues,” Rubio told me. “And the fundamental argument I’m making is the best way to confront 21st-century issues is by applying the principles that made us great to the unique challenges before us now.” So, I clarified, the new American century was really about returning to the principles of the last American century? “Actually, the principle of the new American century is to make it even better than the 20th century,” he explained. Oh. OK. Rubio enjoyed a sustained surge in the polls in late October, on the strength of a forceful debate performance, after which it seemed he might be able to unify the sizable bloc of Republican voters who aren’t ready to disassemble all government and replace it with the hunger games. But his momentum seems to have stalled in recent weeks, and his strategy in the early states seems opaque. Poster Comment: New American century? You all know the organization named "Project for A New American Century" or PNAC? It is a lair of Neocons, plain and simple. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 3.
#2. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
At one point I considered Rand Paul to be the Republican Obama, as my estimate of whether he would actually carry out such change (we hoped!) about the same as Obama. Obama never convinced me that he would end the wars which is really what everybody, including the Nobel committee, was hoping for back in 2008. I would vote for a communist (not my first choice!) if I were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they would pursue an agenda of peace in foreign policy, because it is easier to fight for liberty in peacetime than not. I would not vote for a leftist if I only *hoped* that they would pursue peace. However, my feelings are pretty much the same if a right-winger was iffy as well.
George Washington had the best foreign policy. "Equal trading partners with all states and favorites to none." It is advice which our current day leaders would be well advised to adhere. ;)
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