Surprising exactly no one, Marco Rubio lost his home state of Florida. And you have to wonder if even Rubio was surprised at his loss, despite “Little Marco” being hellbent to turn Miami into his Little Big Horn. Only a few days before he was desperately reaching out to Governor Kasich’s Florida supporters (all three of them) to support Rubio’s campaign in Florida and for his supporters in Ohio (all ten of them) to support Kasich in Ohio. Kasich–ever the selfish “me first” phony of nice guy conservatism–didn’t play along, and it wouldn’t have mattered even if he did. The move signaled what we’ve all known for a long time: Rubio’s campaign is dead, and Rubio himself had grown increasingly desperate while pretending he could still win.
I don’t particularly dislike Rubio the way I do Ted Cruz, and if anything I’m pretty neutral to him now that he’s out of the race. But I’ll be glad that I won’t have to see his campaign surrogates around anymore being wildly optimistic about Rubio’s chances in a way that spat in the face of math, U.S. election history, and reality. Rubio did not seem to understand that his campaign actually died on the last Super-Tuesday–March 1st–when he didn’t win Virginia.
Why was Virginia important? Because up to that point, Rubio had not won anything. Sure, later in the night he won the Minnesota Caucus, which doesn’t matter because Minn-e-so-tah is the only state in America that never voted for Reagan and the Democrats could nominate John Edwards and he’d probably win. Later, Rubio would win Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. which, if anything, probably hurt him with Republican primary voters allergic go all things Latino and Washington. Still, Virginia was a huge purple state and would have finally told the world that Rubio was the more electable candidate than Donald J. Trump…
Then none of that happened. Trump won the biggest purple state up to that point, completing his near-clean sweep of Southern states, and that left him primed to beat Rubio on his home turf, where he’s been not showing up in his role of “absentee senator” since pretty much the moment he won the job. Virginia was not just a huge purple state, it was also a state that would have disproportionately benefitted from Rubio’s insane goal of one trillion dollars in new military spending. If he couldn’t beat Trump in a state that would directly benefit economically from his dumb proposals then where could he beat him?
Not in his own backyard, apparently. And even the fact that that would have counted as a victory—look at the way Kasich is praised as some sort of conquering hero for winning a state he’s the sitting Governor of—tells you how desperate they all were for any kind-of victory against Trump. And the word “desperate” is one thrown around a lot about Rubio these days. It’s sad to see the once “future” of the Republican Party reduced to flop-sweat king “Little Marco.” And that was his mistake: being the “future” of a party that only wants the past.
All in all, Rubio came off looking a lot like “identity crisis Jones” one week being Tea Party, the next week establishment, the next week a fresh rebuke of stale old neocons like Jeb, the next week embracing said neocons against Trump, then becoming a weird mini-me version of Trump (if voters wanted an immature insult comic, they’d just vote for Trump), and finally apologizing for said personal attacks before becoming…I’m not sure exactly, but I know it’s not a “winner.” Rubio could have quit a few weeks ago while he still had a future, but he’s become only the latest in a string of Trump kamikaze casualties who think that through sheer force of delusional ego they can take down somebody Lindsey Graham, Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie could not stop.
Maybe Rubio could learn from that last name who is now being humiliated on the campaign trail in a friendly capacity while stumping for Trump. After all, Trump has already taken his dignity. Because we all know that even after this campaign is long over, the name “Little Marco” will be following Rubio for decades.
So where does he go from here? My prediction: the guy becomes the actual Republican version of John Edwards, a one-term senator brought down by an affair or, more likely in Marco’s case, a drug arrest for cocaine. I know I was just joking in my YouTube video of the guy as a cokehead, but seeing how much the poor, pale bastard has been sweating lately—along with missing all those senate votes—I’m beginning to wonder…
This really made me fill better about him dropping out.
Rub e who?
So he dropped out…
great review about Rubio, now that he’s dropped out who knows what will happen to him.