Jeb and the entire Bush clan have been around for so long that the governor has loyalists sprinkled all over the state, and most people who’ve worked for Marco worked for Jeb first — including Rubio’s 2010 campaign manager, who recently announced he’d be working as Jeb’s lead adviser for Hispanic outreach. Many state lawmakers who should be Rubio partisans are for the moment keeping mum. 

But Rubio has other advantages when it comes to snatching up votes in his crucial home state. “The fact of the matter is that Rubio was on a statewide ballot more recently,” says David Custin, a Miami-based strategist. “There are millions of registered voters who’ve never voted for Bush. And there was no tea-party wing when Jeb ran. There is now, and Rubio connects to them.”

And it’s not just the tea party. “He’s televangical,” says Gelber. “And I always found it very maddening, because he was hijacking our issues and frankly sounding better than most of us. Rubio’s very good at sounding the right note. Whereas Jeb just always seems a little bit off-key.”

Most threatening of all, though, is that Rubio is a young man in a hurry with little to lose. Back in 2010, the world discouraged him from running in the Senate primary against Charlie Crist, and he didn’t listen then either. His biggest fear isn’t running for office too soon; it’s waiting too long, like Jeb. True, he had to give up his Senate seat in order to run. But he’s only 44 years old. He never cared much for Congress anyway. “He really feels that the Senate hasn’t debated the issues,” says Braman. Obama felt the same way. It was up or out.