Jeb Bush: Maybe Marco Rubio's Many Noisy, Noisy Fans Should Put a Sock In It And Let Their Goldenboy Stand On His Own Two Feet, If He Can Manage That Trick

SECOND LOOK AT JEB BUSH?

Great post by Allah. What's going on is that Marco fans, and boy, does he have a lot of them in the right media, are demanding that all of Marco Rubio's rivals lay their bodies down upon the ground so that Marco can walk upon their backs without getting his high Cuban heels muddied.

People I quite like are seriously going out of their minds -- John McCormack is claiming it's a low blow for Chris Christie to inform voters about Marco Rubio's actual position on rape in cases of abortion. Rubio takes the Akin position, which we were all informed four years ago was a position that rendered a candidate unelectable. (As it turns out, they were right.)

Does John McCormack not think Hillary already knows about that, and is planning on bringing it up in September? Is there some reason Republicans ought not to now about this before they make their choice in candidate?

Others argue that Jeb should stop running ads against Rubio because, I don't know. It's time to train those ads on Rubio's other opponents, like Trump.

Because, of course, this is what's in Marco Rubio's best interest.

I imagine these folks are also down on Christie and Jeb both running ads about Marco-endorser Rick Santorum being utterly flummoxed when asked to name a single accomplishment of Marco Rubio.

Yes, I do know the one -- he inserted a poison-pill into Obamacare's funding mechanism reducing Obama's ability to use risk corridor bailouts as a slushfund to save his failing program.

Gets pretty thin after that -- and yet Ted Cruz's alleged lack of tangible accomplishments is put forth as a reason to rule him out as unelectable.

Cruz did zero things, Rubio did one thing. I guess this big difference of one vs. zero is as important as the one percentage point gap between Cruz's and Rubio's lead over Hillary Clinton. Per Real Clear Politics, Rubio leads Hilary by an average of 2.5%, and Cruz leads her by 1.3% -- and out of this 1.2% difference, Marco's Minions line up to swear upon the Bibles of Four Different Religions that Marco is electable and Cruz is not.

Ramesh Ponnuru responds that if Rubio is as strong a candidate as all the more establishment-aligned right media think, he should be able to weather these criticisms and respond to them effectively.

Right?

Right?

This is an example of the thing I was so bothered about in the podcast. It's not that I don't think this class of people should not make their opinions known. Obviously, they have that right.

But this class has a way outsized voice in these matters. They're actually barking orders at Marco Rubio's rivals to roll over for him -- and their demands will actually get a serious hearing among Christie's and Jeb's campaign staffs (given that they want to work for other people in the establishment after their candidates lose).

This is a terrible, terrible impulse. They're so keen on Marco Rubio they're demanding the process be short-circuited in his favor -- thus making this all look like another slimy scheme cooked up in some back room, foisted on people, yet again, over their loud protests.

Perhaps Marco Rubio can actually win over a majority of Republicans, and not merely a 20% minority with a greatly, greatly outsized influence on the Party.

Perhaps he cannot.

But I sure would like to see Marco Rubio try to actually assemble this 50% majority, rather than have the 20% who have been with him since before he even announced for president pressuring everyone to let The New Bambi win without any kind of a contest.

Second Look at Ramesh Ponnuru: Ponnuru wants to know why it is that Rubio's supporters are forever calling for Rubio's rivals to use all their money to attack Trump, and yet Rubio himself never does.

It's f***ing bizarre.

Rubio really is the Republican Obama -- his fans are just as cultish.

posted by Ace at 06:44 PM

| Access Comments