“He’s got more experience than Obama had,” Land continued. “There are a lot of Hispanics in this country who would find someone with Marco’s ethnic background very appealing. Although I like Sarah [Palin] I think Sarah’s got a lot more impediments to a nomination than Marco Rubio does.”
I was surprised to hear it from Land, a leading figure on the Christian right, with which Rubio hasn’t been particularly associated. Rubio is more generally seen as the darling of the Wall Street-financed Club for Growth and of the fiscally-oriented Tea Party movement. But Land said he’d heard a great deal about Rubio from Baptist ministers in Florida, who said “he walks the walk.”
The echoes of Obama are unmistakable, and the context of Obama both removes Rubio’s youth and inexperience as issues and intensifies the Republican need for a new face. Now, though, what Rubio needs is an easy race. We’re two years out from the presidential campaign, not — as Obama was — four, and Rubio would need the luxury (which Obama had, and John Thune has) of a campaign so easy that he can spend parts of this fall in other states, doing favors and testing waters.
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