Marco Rubio is unfolding like a flower before American voters. It's a long, slow unfolding; little by little, easy does it. But political insiders now say, if he plays his cards right, Rubio could be the last GOP presidential candidate standing.
Democratic political commentators from James Carville to George Stephanopoulos say Rubio, who at age 44 appeals to the younger generation, understands the struggles of the middle class like no other in the race and speaks directly to first generation Americans, is the only candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton in November.
Longtime Republican strategist Gary Marx, most recently part of the Scott Walker campaign, told NBC News, "The most likely person is Rubio to be able to coalesce both parts of the party -- establishment and tea party -- and have a unified Republican base."
And on Sunday, prominent political journalist Benjamin Wallace-Wells, writing in the New Yorker, compared Rubio's mystique to JFK's, Bill Clinton's, even Barack Obama's. He calls the Florida senator "The Natural. ... young, pragmatic, and charismatic, understood from an exceptionally early age to represent the future of the party ..."
Rubio goes into the new year at only 12 percent to Donald Trump's 42 percent, but it's a number that still puts him in the top tier of candidates in most states' polls. And I can't find anyone who believes the Floridian's numbers won't rise in February and after.
There's no denying, without raising much money, while working quietly, while "speaking to little rooms of retirees in county historical societies when Trump is selling out racetracks and basketball arenas," Rubio has become the favorite for the nomination in the betting markets.
Writes Wallace-Wells, "Rubio’s great theme is the global longing to be part of the American middle class, and the heroic human efforts made to join it." The theme resonates because it narrates the immigrant experience of his parents -- his father an itinerant bartender, his mother a hotel maid and a store clerk.
No candidate is more charismatic than Rubio when he tells that story and punctuates it with an understanding that "this is a bright new day, for a new generation."
Wallace-Wells writes about how quickly Rubio connects with simple, honest people. Speaking at the town hall in Rochester, N.H. Dec. 21, "he spoke of his own mother’s dependence on Social Security, to reassure his audience that his reforms wouldn’t leave her in the cold; his Green Beret brother’s bureaucratic battles with the V.A., to underline the necessity of agency reform; his father’s late-night car rides through Las Vegas, pointing out Liberace’s house, and explaining that only in the United States was attainment like this possible."
Meanwhile, there aren’t many hopes or dreams in Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s candidacy, or in Trump’s. Mostly there is an angry insistence that the country can remain static, that its greatness lies not in where it's going but in where it has been.
Said Wallace-Wells, "Trump has made himself the image of the menaced, bristling white working class. Cruz has channelled the feeling that conservative outsiders have been betrayed by their own representatives in Washington."
Right now it's apparently the Trump-Cruz message that appeals, as Republicans engage in "complicated and deeply felt internal fights over authenticity and identity." But sometime in 2016, when the time comes that rank-and-file conservatives realize Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president of the United States if they don't sort out their priorities, watch Marco Rubio's petals fully open to the party faithful in a panic.
This isn't just Nancy Smith talking. Shrewder observers than I am are seeing this and predicting more for Rubio.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
