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| Senator Marco Rubio, the next President of the United States |
The growing Republican field has always been fairly small to me. After Mitt broke my heart, there were really only three--Bush, Walker, and Rubio. Bush and Walker had what I like most--executive experience. I've written about it here before, and I value it immensely. I've been under no pressure to pick a candidate, as I'm not so important that Presidential campaigns were pressuring me to sign on. I have talked with a couple, and there just didn't seem to be any reason for me to pick yet. But the longer I went without knowing where I was going to invest my time and energy, the more out of it I felt. And so throughout the day today (Tuesday), I decided to decide.
I am supporting Rubio because 1) his temperament and ideology appeal to me and 2) I think he has the best chance of beating whomever the Democrats run. This was the same logic I applied to my choice of Mitt Romney in 2012. A month ago if you held a gun to my head, I would have said I was a Jeb Bush man. And if Rubio weren't running, I would be this year. Jeb was a fantastic Governor, and he would be a terrific President. I will proudly and energetically support him if he wins the nomination, and for those of you wondering, I will support WHOMEVER the GOP nominates.
But in the past month--a month in which I studied all three men (including Walker) very closely---and then toward the end gave Carly Fiorina a long look--Rubio just rose in my estimation. He is smart, likable, and positive. I think this last point was what did it for me....Marco Rubio in whatever venue I've seen him in--speeches, interviews, you name it--he seems genuinely happy to be wherever he is. This is a skill and a talent if it is not true, and if it is true, it is a blessing. I don't see this in all the candidates. I surely don't see it in Hillary.
And so, hopefully I'll do a bit of writing here and there about Marco Rubio over the next 17 months, and perhaps in November of 2016, we'll finally be able to put the Obama nightmare behind us.
I look forward to a great campaign full of ups and downs, and I can't wait until September when we debut the newly invigorated site with a few more bloggers.
Let the fun begin!
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3 comments:
I have facilitated many an itinerary for politicians visiting military facilities from aircraft carriers to shipyards to the detention facility at Guantanamo, and Senator Rubio counts among the most engaged, interested and intellectually curious of all I've encountered.
He asked insightful, thoughtful questions. You could tell he did his homework, and his first questions were a few levels deeper than most wave-skimming, superficial questions that politicians ask to appear interested.
What impressed me more were his follow-up questions. He took in the new information, synthesized what it meant and asked the truly hard questions -- asking about the kind of issues that senior officers worry about because they usually require a political solution informed by deep understanding.
He was also a genuinely warm and interested person, fully engaged and present with every person he spoke with, from briefers to soldiers and sailors to refugees. He listened and heard and connected with people.
There are a lot of great candidates. Marco Rubio is a choice I can easily support.
Good!
I could support Rubio but I have misgivings in terms of experience and also his early amnesty proposal is troubling. Walker has demonstrated he can navigate partisan waters without compromising his core principles and those skills would serve him well as President. Rand Paul seems brilliant but flakey. Fiorina I absolutely love, but she may be a one trick pony (attacking Hillary) and I doubt she can win. But at this stage I'm just not willing to take a chance on Rubio.
It is still VERY early, and nobody will be calling me to get onboard "the team", so I can afford to wait (not that anybody gives a damn who I'm voting for).
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