Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!


Contact
Ace:
aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck:
buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD:
cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix:
mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum:
petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton:
sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com


Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups






















« John Kasich: When the New York Times Endorsed Me, I Wept at All the Wonderful Things They Were Saying About Me | Main | Republican Representative DeSantis: Why Is Obama Handling L'Affaire Hillary In House Instead of Appointing an Outside, No-Conflict-of-Interest Special Prosecutor? »
February 01, 2016

Why Marco Rubio Could Very Well Win

A friend proposed to me that Trump would never win, as Cruz would never win, because, in the end, Republicans will do what Republicans have been doing for 30 years, settling, unenthusiastically, on a choice that seems "safe."

The idea is that one should ignore all the particulars of a race -- candidate personality, agenda, etc. -- and focus on the structural underpinnings which decide most races.

Republicans, he reminded me, aren't all bloggers or angry young men who can just shrug off the possibility of massive upheavals or political chaos. They own businesses. They have mortgages. They have, crucially, children.

All of these things make them more risk-averse in their political choices than they might be if ideology were their primary motivator.

Now I have huge problems with Rubio. For all the talk of his "new ideas," he only seems to have George W. Bush's ideas, which are pretty unpopular now.

His speeches leave me ice-cold -- people talk about the kind words he has for America, but 1, that's easy and cheap, and 2, I don't hear him talking about America as America.

What I hear him talking about is Marco Rubio, and how America is a great country because it let Marco Rubio's parents in, and how Marco Rubio's life story redeems America. It's a sort of Obama-like praise of the country -- a praise heavily focused on Rubio, or Obama, as if either of these two men are the final solution to a difficult mathematical equation which America has been trying to solve for 240 years.

He talks about America being a country of immigrants without seeming to notice that, in fact, most Americans are not first, second, or third generation immigrants.

Nevertheless, the Establishment has convinced itself that Marco Rubio is the most "electable" candidate, because they think, wrongly I believe, that all it takes is a Spanish speaker to repeat George W. Bush's basic political prescriptions and the Hispanic vote will flock to us (or at least, say, 40% will).

And because the Establishment, and all of its idea-propagation power (and it has a lot of idea propagation power), has deemed Rubio the "safest" of all candidates, most people, who rely on group consensus for their own decisions, are deeming him the "safest" as well.

And then add into that Republicans' fundamental preference for "safe" over revolutionary or radical and you have a pretty good structuralist case for Marco Rubio's surprise win.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to predict that, though I'm leaning that way. Cruz is getting beaten up bad, now that he's a front runner (or until recently a front runner), and Trump is unable to break out beyond his stalwarts.

Meanwhile, the establishment and its thousand meme-carriers just keep repeating the idea that a relatively untested Senator espousing a version of George W. Bush's largely-unpopular agenda is somehow very "safe" and very "electable."

What are Marco Rubio's thoughts the legality of abortion in cases of rape?

Well, he's against it. Not a popular position.

He doesn't sound very moderate as regards foreign interventions -- another unpopular stance easily painted as "extremist."

I find the case for Marco Rubio to be incoherent -- on one hand, he's presented as a palatable candidate with high appeal to moderates.

On the other hand, his champions like him because he's "very conservative."

So wait, which is it -- his moderation, or his ideological purity, that makes him a winner?

It keeps coming down to the idea, I think, that he's Hispanic, and that will make his more ideological rigid positions seem "moderate."

He certainly doesn't have Reagan's ability to make conservatism sound like the most common-sense and reasonable philosophy in the world.

For the all the claims that this or that candidate is too "extreme," Rubio has a lot of unpopular stances himself, which never get talked about, because the political establishment has decided, for some reason, he's a winner.

The one thing he's definitely "moderate" on is immigration and amnesty. Does that one moderate arrow make his whole quiver moderate?

Yet, that's what the establishment says, and many people listen to what the establishment says.

And he just might win Iowa, and maybe even the primary.

And then we'll see if the establishment's track record in picking "safe and electable general election candidates" has improved any.



digg this
posted by Ace at 04:16 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
SMOD: "President-elect Donald Trump is arriving at the Wh ..."

J.J. Sefton: "367 Hence my moniker for her "Titty Caca" - her d& ..."

pudinhead: "There's all you need to know. Promoting it as some ..."

[/b][/s][/u][/i]muldoon: "The picture's coming clearer. Posted by: naturalf ..."

Boron Cobbie - women are taught to need marriage without needing to be wives: " And also a lot of these sightings are actually U ..."

JackStraw: "LOL. Trump is trolling Trudeau hard this morning. ..."

m: "160 My folks were somewhat interesting.... their p ..."

Sponge - F*ck Cancer: "[i] Auto-cucumber. Posted by: I used to have a d ..."

I used to have a different nic: "[i]You misspelled 'all leftists everywhere.' Post ..."

pudinhead: "You guys gotta get me out of here! There's this gu ..."

NR Pax: "388 [i]388 Even muzzie dick is bigger than yours.[ ..."

J.J. Sefton: "384 Yo, AOC, a jury voted Penny not guilty. Is tha ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64