Marco Rubio may be the Republican that pays the largest price for Donald Trump’s campaign disasters, if he is caught by his Democratic opponent by election day. The truth is, even if he wins, Marco Rubio has to begin all over again to build up his image after 2016.
And what is he? In his young career he was an enthusiastic supporter of Mike Huckabee. He attached himself to the “Tea Party” in order to defeat his moderate incumbent opponent in 2010. He has also styled himself as a fierce hawk, during a period when the American public is war-weary. But after Romney’s loss in 2012, he allowed himself to become the face of the Republicans’ last blunder at comprehensive immigration reform. His involvement in the Gang of Eight bill was a major albatross in his run for the presidency. The hopes placed on him were that he had the rhetorical skills and biography to begin winning at least a less-embarrassing percentage of votes from minorities to the Republican Party.
The Republican Party has known since at least 2008 that it needs some kind of reform to become effective again at the national level and in presidential elections. It’s in the Senate that these new ideas can be road-tested. The first attempt by the Tea Party class of 2010 seems like a mixture of promising ideas that almost all immediately crashed and burned, going up in flames when put into contact with public opinion, internal Republican politics, or the challenge of Donald Trump.
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