1/14/16 GOP Presidential Debate
Bred and polished to be the ideal candidate for a culturally diverse America, Marco Rubio stands out as one of the most unique Republican candidates in this election. Born in Miami to Cuban immigrants, Rubio plausibly steals the majority of the Latino votes. Starting from humble beginnings – a hardworking middle class family of four – he also attracts voters from the middle class. All in all, he elegantly represents the American dream, and seems the most logical Republican candidate to be nominated, yet his role in the 2016 Republican GOP debate left many questioning his aptness for the job. Frankly, he failed to impress at the Republican debate.
Seeming to lead the way in political slandering and name calling, Rubio started the debate with an inept statement where he “disqualified” Hillary Clinton from being president, and only grew more biting as the debate bore on. As other candidates chose to use certain platforms as the highlights of the debate, for example Jeb Bush on National Security and Donald Trump on trade tariffs with the Chinese, Rubio’s platform seemed to be focused on vilifying Obama. Rubio focused more on Obama’s administration (and bashing him through any means possible) than he did on answering the questions at hand. When asked about the Islamic State, he immediately answered by disapproving Obama’s approach to the issue, accusing him of undermining the gravity of it, and ending the statement with a very intricate response: “If we do not know who you are, and we do not know why you are coming when I am president, you are not getting into the United States of America,” implying that Muslim refugees have malintentions when entering the United States.
Rubio, despite lending little to the debate other than some questionable digs at Obama, still had ample time to redeem himself when the issue of immigration was brought up, specifically having the bill he cosponsored which would give 10 million new green cards out over the next 10 years as ammo to sway Hispanics. Instead of proudly standing by the decision he made, he evaded the topic by bringing up terrorism as a growing threat to national security, saying “Twenty-four months ago, 36 months ago, you did not have a group of radical crazies named ISIS…The entire system of legal immigration must now be reexamined for security first and foremost.” This comes after Rubio’s post-Boston Marathon bombing statement espousing his belief that there shouldn’t be a “linking” of illegal immigration to terrorist attacks.
Intellectually, Rubio brought little to the table. When discussing taxes, Rubio piggybacked off of Reaganomics and bashed Cruz’s tax plan, calling it a disguised European VAT tax. In general, his approach seemed to be propaganda-based, choosing to speak about a common “enemy” of the Republican Party – President Obama – to try to rally support for his seemingly non-existent presidential platforms. Even his closing statement, which focused on Obama’s “changing” of America and “gutting of the military” was more focused on criticizing Obama than on his presidential campaign.