10 Reasons I’m Thrilled to See RoboRubio Out of the GOP Race

There are dozens of reasons I’m thrilled to see Marco RoboRubio out of the 2016 GOP presidential race. Here are 10 of ’em.

1. He said (or his spokesman said) some of the most slanderous, disgusting things about President Obama imaginable, such as that Obama is “intentionally trying to destroy the country,” or equally-despicable variant of “Barack Obama has deliberately weakened America.” Those comments alone prove that Rubio is not a sunny, optimistic, or new kind of Republican. To the contrary, he’s willing to do what he claims we shouldn’t do — demonize the opposition simply because they disagree with him on how best to provide health care to all Americans, whether we should use more or less force in the Middle East, whatever. The fact that he said these things about our nation’s first African-American president makes them even worse, and the fact that he’s just flat-out wrong on both counts — actually, America is MUCH stronger today than it was when Barack Obama took office, and to even suggest that Obama (or George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan or whoever) would INTENTIONALLY work to weaken (or even “destroy”) America should be utterly beyond the pale. For that reason alone, I hope Rubio crawls back under the slimy rock he came from and never come out again.
2. He suffers from the fatal syndrome of “Conservative Brain Death” when it comes to climate science. First and foremost, he refuses to accept the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists around the world (and for decades now) that: a) global warming is real; b) humans are overwhelmingly responsible for it; and c) we’re headed for disaster if we don’t take action now. Second, he blatantly lies about the economic impacts of switch from fossil fuels to clean energy, false claiming that these would “be devastating for our economy,” when in fact the EXACT OPPOSITE is true — they would be a huge benefit to our economy as well as to our environment. The fact that Rubio comes from Florida, a state which is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of global warming, makes all this even worse. Bottom line: this alone should disqualify Rubio from holding public office in America, let alone Senator or President.
3. He’s been all over the place on immigration, holding “numerous contradicting positions” on this issue, but ultimately coming down on the wrong side — the side of the xenophobes and nativists — presumably for political reasons. What this shows is that Rubio will do or say anything to get elected, and also that he’s willing to throw his fellow Latinos under the bus to do so. Again, disgusting.
4. He outright lied about Supreme Court nominations in the final year of a presidency and is one of the Republicans saying that President Obama has no right to even make a Supreme Court nomination to fill the vacancy created by Justice Scalia’s death a few weeks ago. Yet again, disgusting, not to mention irresponsible and unconstitutional.
5. He kept repeating the “zombie lie” about the “smallest Navy in a century,” ignoring the fact that one Navy ship today is (far) more powerful than our entire fleet 100 years ago. Yes, it’s “modern nuclear-powered fleet carriers, versus gunboats and small warships of 100 years ago.” Yet somehow Rubio doesn’t understand this incredibly simple concept? Utter #FAIL, and certainly not Commander-in-Chief material.
6. He has some serious, personal financial “issues.”
   

   Senator Rubio, you yourself have said that you’ve had issues. You have a lack of bookkeeping skills. You accidentally inter-mingled campaign money with your personal money. You faced foreclosure on a second home that you bought. And just last year, you liquidated a $68,000 retirement fund. That’s something that cost you thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties. In terms of all of that, it raises the question whether you have the maturity and wisdom to lead this $17 trillion economy. What do you say?

7. His tax plan was extreme, “deliver[ing] a $1 million tax break to the richest 0.1 percent of the country in its first year and slash[ing] government revenue by $6.8 trillion over the next decade…requir[ing] “unprecedented”spending cuts.” In other words, the exact OPPOSITE of the direction we need to be going. Clueless.
8. It’s great to see political pundits be SO wrong. For months/years, we’ve had the Chris Cillizzas and many others building up Rubio as the perfect person – young, Latino, etc. – to re-“brand” the GOP for the 21st century. We’ve also had the media proclaiming Rubio’s third-place finishes as “strong,” claiming over and over again that he’s a great speaker with tremendous potential, blah blah blah. Just as Cillizza et al. were wildly wrong about Trump (and pretty much everything else, such as the 2008 and 2012 elections), they were wildly wrong about Rubio. Not that there will be any accountability for these guys (and yes, they’re mostly guys), but still, I’m enjoying it. 🙂
9. Rubio even lied about his own family’s personal history. In fact, “What Mario and Oriales Rubio did was human, but not an act of political defiance against Castro.”
10. He accomplished essentially nothing in the US Senate, not even showing up for the job he was hired to do, then bugged out to run for president (stabbing his old mentor JEB in the back while doing so, by the way). Fortunately, that presidential run ended last night, ignominiously in his own home state — a fitting end to this loser, lightweight and liar. Good riddance, RoboRubio, you will not be missed.

P.S. One more — its great to see the Republican “establishment,” including Rep. Barbara Comstock, put their hopes and endorsements in RoboRubio and then have him flame out, leaving them holding the smouldering ashes of their grand strategy to “rebrand.” LOL