Moe Lane

Allahpundit sums it up pretty well:

The menu for Sunday TV brunch: Marco Rubio with a side of Marco Rubio, served a la Rubio with just a sprinkling of Rubio on top. He’ll be on all five major shows this morning (“the full Ginsburg”) plus Univision plus Telemundo to sell the Gang of Eight’s new “earned amnesty.”

In case you were wondering, the full Ginsburg is named after William Ginsburg, attorney for Monica Lewinsky: he managed to appear on all five major Sunday morning political talk shows in the same day.  In 1998, this was an accomplishment; these days, it’s an opportunity to exercise some cynicism.  A look at the folks that have done this since then has shown that the maneuver has been done for a variety of reasons and causes; but Rubio’s (and, earlier, Jeb Bush) certainly upped the ante on this one.

Moe Lane

PS: As to the proposal, itself… frankly, I think that 95% of the arguments on this, pro and con, are resting on an extremely flawed premise: which is to say, we are ever going to see a return to the high levels of illegal immigration that occurred in previous decades.  You can say that I found What to Expect When No One’s Expecting‘s arguments otherwise to be highly persuasive.

Via The Morning Jolt, via The Washington Examiner: Marco Rubio’s turning the water thing into a schtick, which is exactly what you do to make third-party jokes about it seem… lame.

Be very, very afraid.  Because it’s not just Rubio.  We’re prepping a whole bunch of people this go-round who can actually play the game.

Not much need for analysis on this one, but generally: Marco Rubio’s speech was solid, well thought-out, and aside from that water bobble thing (which he smartly made fun of himself, afterward) on-key.  Rubio is good at this sort of thing, which is one major reason why the grassroots went with him early in 2010.  As for Rand Paul… I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the man is a sarcastic so-and-so.  Which was, in its way, a great response to Barack Obama’s opinions, which are far too often quite profoundly silly.

I’m sure that people are going to try to mock the Rubio water thing, but I wouldn’t sweat it too much.  God knows that it’s not like Obama’s rhetorical gifts are going to overshadow it, based on THIS SotU address.  That was… boring.  Horribly, horribly boring.  Even by Obama standards.

I could live with this. More importantly: so could probably 50+% of the electorate, which I suspect is getting thoroughly tired of this issue.

[Marco Rubio's] wholesale fix tries to square—triangulate, if you will—the liberal fringe that seeks broad amnesty for illegal immigrants and the hard right’s obsession with closing the door. Mr. Rubio would ease the way for skilled engineers and seasonal farm workers while strengthening border enforcement and immigration laws. As for the undocumented migrants in America today—eight to 12 million or so—he proposes to let them “earn” a working permit and, one day, citizenship.

Those proposals amount to a collection of third rails for any number of lobbies. Organized labor has torpedoed guest-worker programs before. Anything that hints of leniency for illegals may offend the talk-radio wing of the GOP.

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Or is at least angling for a VP slot in 2016. From The Corner:

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida says the Senate’s fiscal-cliff compromise, which passed the upper chamber early Tuesday, was a political mistake.

“I just couldn’t vote for it,” Rubio told reporters. “I ran, just two years ago, on the idea that I wanted to be part of solving the long-term problems this country faces. Time and again, we’re given choices here that don’t involve that.”

Via Hot Air Headlines.  Of the other four GOP holdouts… oh, I am a cynical evil giraffe this morning.  Suffice it to say that these Senators have their reasons, and that I expect that Mike Lee’s and Rand Paul’s are ones that I would actually like.

On the suddenly-dead talking point about Rubio and the age of the Earth (spoiler warning: it’s pretty much the same thing as what Barack Obama said about the age of the Earth, which is why it’s a suddenly-dead talking point):

Scientists say with 99 percent certainty that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old. Politicians such as Rubio and Obama instead say with 100 percent certainty that the Earth is at least some number of years old and that they like winning elections.

…You don’t say?

So, I had the opportunity to talk with Senator Marco Rubio last night, and ask him a question.  I’ll spare you the verbal tics and whatnot: what I asked Rubio, effectively, was “What advice did the Romney campaign take heed off, out of all of New Media’s unsolicited offerings along those lines?”  This is how Rubio responded:

Rubio 10/03/2012

The funny part was: at the time, I didn’t think that Senator Rubio had actually answered the question*.  But that’s because I had asked the question before the debate.  It was fairly clear last night that Romney had taken to heart the fundamental realization of most of us: Barack Obama ain’t so tough.  He is a little too ready to believe his own hype, doesn’t realize in his bones just how much he’s carried by others, and has an overrated sense of his personal skills and core competencies.  Mitt Romney exploited that from the start last night, and made the clear distinction between him and his opponent that the Senator talks about above and we all wanted Romney to make.

Which is great.  But it’s a start.  Have your warm, fuzzy feeling this morning, sure – then start thinking about how we can take away more from the Democrats.  And then start doing it, too.  We will not be able to coast to the election on the basis of this one primary, and winning elections is a team sport.  Fortunately, Mitt Romney gave us some good stuff to work with, last night.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS Erick is right: put your money where your mouth is.  I just did.

*This did not particularly bother me. Questions and answers in this business is often a cat-and-mouse game where neither side is ever really sure which one is the cat.

Executive summary: A lot of folks went through a lot of stuff in 2010 to get this guy in the Senate.  Last night, he demonstrated why. (more…)

Ed Morrissey, in the process of explaining why Marco Rubio should not be the VP nominee in 2012*:

Yes, I know Obama only had two years in the Senate before beginning his run for the top spot.  Look how well that’s working out.

Although I’m sure Barack Obama means well.  Or, to quote Robert Anton Wilson, I’m sure he means something.

Moe Lane

*Essentially, it’s the lack of executive experience in general and the only been in the Senate for a little over a year in particular.  I fully agree.  Two terms as Senator: a term as Florida Governor; then Rubio can be President.  Rubio’s a young guy, so we’ve got time to wring out a decent decade’s worth of work out of him.

It has just been announced that the good Senator from Florida has listened to the concerns of the Online Right and has decided to stop being a cosponsor for PIPA, which is of course the Senate counterpart to the Hollywood-sponsored Internet-censoring SOPA bill.  This is frankly a relief: Senator Rubio has long been a friend to sites like, say, RedState, and it would have been absolutely painful to encourage a primary challenge to him in 2016 over this issue.

I encourage everyone reading this to, again, contact your Senators and Congressman to tell them to follow Sen. Rubio’s lead and reaffirm their stance against censorship.  Especially if your Senators and/or Congressman is a Democrat: the Online Right has to do the heavy lifting on this one, as the netroots find it institutionally, ah,  problematic to challenge its leadership*. (more…)

I swear to God, it’s like the paper remembers that one, perfect high that it got from torpedoing then-Senator George Allen’s re-election run in 2006, and has been chasing the dragon ever since:

• 2009: You all remember the McDonnell/Deeds gubernatorial contest, yes?  You also remember how the WaPo went so all-in on pushing an absurd story that Jim Geraghty started calling it the Washington Bob McDonnell’s Thesis.
• 2011:  The Rick Perry nonsense with regard to the name of a ranch that his family rented hunting rights to.  Notice how that didn’t blow up after all?

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Well alrighty, then.

The Daily Caller has the details*:

Here’s how the logic works (according to World Net Daily’s Joe Kovacs): “While the Constitution does not define ‘natural-born citizen,’ there is strong evidence that the Founding Fathers understood it to mean someone born of two American citizens.”

Kovacs (and he is not alone) goes on to reason that Rubio’s “eligibility is in doubt” because — though his parents were legal U.S. residents when he was born — they were not yet naturalized citizens.

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