Sen. Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a rapidly rising Republican star, emerged this weekend as the clear favorite of conservative activists to be the GOP vice-presidential nominee, according to two polls sponsored by The Washington Times.
Conservative activists meeting at the Conservative Leadership Conference in Las Vegas and at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Chicago both said Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, still needs to work on shoring up his conservative credentials, and Mr. Rubio was the top choice for running mate.
In The Washington Times-CLC poll in Nevada, which was released Sunday, Mr. Rubio was the pick of about 28 percent of activists, while in a broader survey, The Washington Times-CPAC poll taken in Chicago, Mr. Rubio was the choice of 30 percent.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who wowed the more than 2,000 attendees in Chicago with biting humor at the expense of President Obama and congressional Democrats, placed second with 14 percent, while in Las Vegas, Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, was runner-up with 18 percent of the vote.
Mr. Rubio drew 30 percent of the straw-poll vote, despite not appearing at the Chicago event.
Last week’s conservative hero, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, didn’t see much of a boost from his surprisingly easy defeat of a recall sponsored by organized labor. The Wisconsin governor picked up less than 3 percent at both the Chicago and Las Vegas gatherings.
Mr. Rubio, who served in the Florida Legislature before scoring a stunning upset in that state’s U.S. Senate seat race in 2010, has said he does not expect to be on the GOP ticket this year — though he has actively campaigned with Mr. Romney.
Another freshman lawmaker who could be in the running is Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, a former White House budget director and U.S. trade representative under President George W. Bush. But activists were less sold on him, giving him less than 2 percent of the vote in Chicago.
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4 Responses
1. Very few conservatives are likely to vote for Obama, so they don’t need winning over. Similarly, very few Cuban Americans are likely to support the Democrats. It would help only with Florida.
2. Romney is better off pushing the idea that he will be a dull and boring president, and we’ll have four nice quiet years of undramatic competence. Let Obama push “hope and change” (it hasn’t been what was hoped for, and the changes weren’t for the better), Romney should push “sure and steady.” An inexperience “sexy” vice-president doesn’t help that sort of message.
Akuperma, ou forget that the election will be decided on turnout. Conservatives need to be motivated to vote for Romney, or many of them won’t. Certainly had McCain followed his own desire and picked Lindsay Graham or Joe Lieberman as a running mate, he would have gone down in ignominy; it was Sarah Palin’s presence on the ticket that turned a rout into a respectable loss (and if not for the economic crash a probable win). The 2010 elections were again a showing of the TEA Party movement’s ability to bring out the base, as was the phenomenal turnout in Wisconsin last week. None of that will be there for Romney if he doesn’t pick someone popular with conservatives. People need to feel enthusiastic and motivated to vote, not having to hold their noses, or too many won’t bother.
Of course 0bama has the same problem on the other side; he won in 2008 on turnout, and a lot of those people are not feeling motivated this year, which is why his strategy seems to be to whip up the phoney “War on Women”, play the race card, and otherwise convince his base that Romney is the devil and their lives depend on his defeat.
IF “Conservatives” find Romney to be no different than Obama and choose to stay home, they deserve to have socialized medicine, limited free enterprise, freedom from religion and an isolationist foreign policy.
Conservatives need to be convinced that Romney won’t be just as bad. That he won’t just replace 0bamacare with Romneycare, continue increasing regulation and gun grabbing, appoint “moderates” to the Supreme Court, and leave the nests of vipers in State and the DOJ to go about their business as usual.