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Day 2: Florida Not Buying Rubio’s Opportunistic “Fast and Loose” Reversal

To say that Rubio’s re-election announcement didn’t go smoothly would be an understatement. From brutal coverage to cringeworthy interviews, Rubio’s first day running for a job he “hates” highlighted how little he showed up for work, and how little he accomplished when he did. On the day of his announcement, Rubio couldn’t even make the time to show up to his Senate Foreign Relations Hearing, and a new report revealed how Rubio even killed a bill meant to curb the prescription drug abuse problem in Florida purely for political retribution.

 

But if today’s stories are any indication, Day 2 isn’t going any smoother.

 

Miami Herald: Rick Scott bucks Republican leaders, doesn’t back Marco Rubio

 

In the last 24 hours, GOP leaders have thrown support behind Marco Rubio in his bid to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate. But the highest-ranking Republican in Florida is not among them. Gov. Rick Scott is instead publicly encouraging Carlos Beruff, a Bradenton developer with close ties to the governor, to challenge Rubio in the Republican primary.

 

“Carlos Beruff is a good friend of mine, a businessman and an outsider to politics,” Scott said in a statement. “The voters of Florida deserve the opportunity to consider his candidacy alongside Senator Rubio and make their own decision.”

 

Scott further drew a comparison to himself, saying he was a “poltical outsider” when he first ran for governor in 2010 and defeated Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary.

 

The statement about Beruff is not far off from the governor’s talking points ahead of the presidential preference primary in March: Scott publicly supported Donald Trump in a USA Today op-ed, but he refused to say he was endorsing the then-Republican frontrunner.

 

Miami Herald (Editorial): Sen. Marco Rubio plays fast and loose with his pledge not to run

 

After spending a year telling anyone who asked that he really couldn’t stand being in the U.S. Senate, given how it’s so ineffective and such a waste of time, all of a sudden Marco Rubio has undergone an epiphany. He wants back in!

But his flip-flop will seem too pat, too orchestrated, too opportunistic to anyone not firmly planted in the Rubio camp. The sudden switch puts his honesty into question. How can he persuade voters that he will be an effective champion for Florida after he’s said that the Senate is no place for anyone who wants to get things done? The famously impatient senator told one interviewer during the campaign that he couldn’t stay there because he was too “frustrated.”

Sen. Rubio has explained that he felt a call to duty after a gunman carried out the largest mass shooting in modern times in Orlando. That made him reconsider his promise not to run again. Yet he’s still a sitting senator. If he couldn’t prevent it now, how will running for another term change anything? Especially since he voted the straight NRA line this week by nixing all efforts to impose sensible control on firearms.

Voters don’t want an anointed candidate, and they don’t want to give the Senate seat to a candidate as a consolation prize for losing the presidential primary. Mr. Rubio has his work cut out for him — and a lot of skepticism to overcome.

 

Florida Politics: Joe Henderson: It’s not that Marco Rubio reneged; it’s that he did a lousy job in Senate

 

The fact that Marco Rubio reneged on a vow not to run for re-election to the United States Senate isn’t that big of a deal. Politicians change their minds all the time. That fact that he has done a spectacularly lousy job since Floridians sent him to the Senate in 2010 is a much bigger deal, a piece of reality Marco apologists choose to ignore. And then there is this: A part of his motivation to return to a job he has loudly and often said he loathes was some sort of epiphany after the Orlando massacre June 12.

It does seem a bit disingenuous, though, in view of Rubio’s voting record on gay issues, to use that as a reason for wanting to keep his job. Lest we forget, the Orlando shooting was a hate crime specifically targeted against gays, and has fought against marriage equality and gay parenting. He was against legislation banning workplace discrimination against gays. He advocates appointing Supreme Court justices that will roll back many of the advances made by the LGBT community.

Even giving Rubio the benefit of the doubt on all that as he seeks a second term, the biggest question is whether he would even show up for work. Rubio’s consistently poor voting was a key point that Donald

Trump repeatedly hammered during the presidential campaign en route to a nearly 19-point victory in Florida.

At some point, though, it comes down to governing, and Rubio hasn’t provided evidence he knows how to do that. Worse, he hasn’t shown that he even really cares.

 

 

Tampa Bay Times: Beruff hits Rubio in county where Rubio struggled in presidential primary

 

But Beruff told the Republican audience in Bay County Wednesday that he is not budging and will remind voters of how much Rubio has skipped out on doing his job in Congress and how little real world business experience Rubio has. “When 2.6 million people hire you to do a job, you really should go and do that job; and not go looking for another job,” Beruff said of Rubio who missed 73 of 105 votes in the Senate during the six months before dropping out of the presidential race in March.

“Mr. Rubio has become part of the establishment,” sad Beruff, who has said he’s ready to spend up to $20 million of his own money to win the Senate seat.

 

Attorney William G. Harrison, Jr., said he supported Rubio in 2010, but said his entering the race so late is a problem for him. He said once Rubio made clear he would not seek re-election, he and others took him at his word and started committing to other campaigns. He’s told people in his office and over dinners that he’s backing Beruff and questions how he can go back on his word, just because Rubio changed his mind.

 

“It’s different for people up here in North Florida where it really matters if you keep your word,” Harrison said.

 

He said Rubio is also going to have to overcome not spending much time in the Florida Panhandle since he was elected in 2010. He said Rubio has barely been west of Tallahassee and hasn’t built ties with people.

 

“Nobody knows who Rubio is here,” Harrison said. “Sure we’ve seen him on tv during the presidential campaign. But around here people know if you have a problem you call Bill Nelson’s office and they will take care of it. He’s a good guy, but you just don’t know who he is. We don’t have a connection with him.”

 

USA Today: Sen. Marco Rubio helps GOP, but not necessarily himself, with re-election bid

 

It’s not clear voters will overlook Rubio’s decision to break his no-re-election pledge, all the Senate votes he missed while running for president, and his previous comments expressing frustration with the Senate’s slow pace. He said he feels compelled to run now largely from a sense of public service — and to act as a “check and balance on the excesses of a president.”

 

Even with Rubio in the race, the contest remains a tossup, according to one key handicapper.

 

“He has solid name identification, an organization, and about $3.3 million in his presidential campaign account that can be used on a Senate bid,” Jennifer Duffy of theCook Political Report wrote on the group’s website. “However, that does not mean that Rubio will glide to victory in the general election. His 11-month presidential bid resulted in chronic absenteeism both from his Senate duties and from his constituents in Florida. He also has a voting record that Democrats will mine for fodder.”

 

His rivals in the Senate race already are seizing on that to brand him as untrustworthy.

 

“Marco Rubio’s spent a lot of time in Washington, so it’s not surprising that he’s lost touch with the values of the people of Florida,” said Chris Hartline, spokesman for Republican businessman Carlos Beruff’s campaign. “But the fact that he won’t even commit to doing the full job he’s asking the people of Florida to hire him to do shows just how much Marco Rubio has become Washington’s candidate.”

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CRINGEWORTHY: Rubio’s First TV Interview of Campaign Brutal Preview of Next 5 Months

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