[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
United States News Title: O.C. gives Rubio cheers and checks O.C. gives Rubio cheers and checks By FRANK MICKADEIT COLUMNIST THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER In June of 2008, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist – or a caricature of a politician who looked remarkably like Charlie Crist – showed up at the Irvine Hyatt to keynote the Republican Flag Day dinner and effectively ended his career as a politician with national potential. He just didn't know it. I called Crist – then a potential running mate for John McCain – the second coming of Dan Quayle , and I warned Republicans that this tone-deaf, platitude-laden, mistake-prone pretty-boy was a disaster. The column went viral, apparently reaching the McCain camp so he could scuttle Charlie and draft the female second coming of Dan Quayle. Two years later, Crist is still governor and still wants to go to Washington, now as a U.S. Senator. He became an independent in April after another Republican was polling better for the nomination. That Republican: Marco Rubio . The 2010 O.C. Republican Party Flag Day Dinner keynote speaker: Marco Rubio. Rubio, 39, is a – maybe the – great national Latino hope of the GOP. A good-looking, smart, well-spoken lawyer and son of Cuban immigrants, he was the Speaker of the House in the Florida legislature. He's only gotten into small troubles so far – a little flap with The Steve Miller Band over the unauthorized use of "Take the Money and Run" (in a commercial describing Crist) and anonymously sourced reports in Florida newspapers that the feds are investigating him for possible misuse of a Republican Party credit card. But by and large, Rubio is as seen as the clean "movement conservative" (his words) tea partiers and establishment Republicans alike crave, and he came to O.C. on Monday night to introduce himself to those who can write big checks for this fall's U.S. Senate race against Crist and a yet-to-be-determined Democrat. The pre-dinner line to have a photo taken with Rubio snaked through two Hyatt anterooms. I thought our D.A.-In-Waiting was going to have a panic attack when it looked like the photo op might shut down before his turn. Rubio's speech was, to the ears of this non-partisan, pretty good. At 33 minutes, it was more than three times as long and three times as substantive as Crist's, but that is an impossibly low bar. It wasn't as good as Mitt Romney 's on Flag Day 2007, but that is a pretty high bar. But much closer to Romney than Crist, for sure. Scott Carpenter , an increasingly well-known local GOP pundit, found Rubio "humble and authentic, but confident," and that captures it pretty well. Boyish in a refreshing way, Rubio truly did seem humble: "Quite frankly, I'm blown away," he said at the introductory applause. "I'm embarrassed that many of you even know who I am." He said the right things to this crowd of 800 (a crowd that leans right-center to right), blaming incumbents. "The Republican Party is as guilty as the Democrat for putting us in the position we are now," and asserting that in the post-Contract-With-American-era, Republicans "fell in love" with power. "2006 and 2008 exposed what Republicans who lose their soul look like." America, he said, is sliding toward Western-European-style socialism, "and then you're Greece." It appears Greece is the (dirty) word this year. He is an unabashed hard-liner on foreign policy, ripping the "Obama Doctrine" of "abandonment, appeasement and retreat" for alleged miscues with Israel, Honduras, China and Russia. The one thing Rubio wasn't, however, was specific. He didn't outline his economic-reform plan. He spent a fair amount of time decrying the U.N.'s handling of Iranian nukes ("Iran is not going to abandon its nuclear program because it gets a nasty letter from the United Nations.") but he never said what he would do. (Elsewhere, he's quoted as calling for tougher economic sanctions.) But make no mistake , Rubio, whatever his flaws, is conservatives' fair-haired boy right now. Local party Chairman Scott Baugh stood up after the speech and in an impromptu auction-style fundraising tour de force, raised more than $25,000 on the spot, including maximum ($2,400) donations from Jim Lacy , Buck Johns , Dale Dykema and Mike Schroeder . The fat wallets sang on Monday night, but the fat lady hasn't. It's still a long way to a GOP-majority Congress. Mickadeit writes Mon.-Fri. Contact him at 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Badeye (#0)
Where's he stand on amnsesty?
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace I'm biased, obviously, given the shit I'm subjected to daily here from the anti groupie. Badeye posted on 2010-06-10 11:34:31 ET Reply Trace Private Reply
|
|
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|