Rubio’s Running for Reelection
Says the reason is to help be a “check and balance on bad ideas” from next President
Florida Senator Marco Rubio has decided to run for reelection, he confirmed to Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Wednesday. Fox News posted a short clip on Twitter; the full interview will air at 6 pm Eastern Time.
WATCH: @marcorubio tells Chris Wallace why he changed his mind and decided to run for re-election in the Senate.https://t.co/zrqCFwcDcz
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 22, 2016
“People in politics don’t like to admit that they’ve changed their mind, but I changed my mind, and the people in Florida deserve to know why,” Rubio said, explaining that there were “a lot of reasons.”
Rubio acknowledged that he “had been frustrated with what’s happening here in the Senate, with the gridlock and the inability to move forward on things.” However, he continued, “the Senate’s also a place where you can serve your constituents with constituent services, and I said that during the [presidential] campaign, it’s a place where you can hopefully still move on some major issues.”
“But I think that the real reason, and the deepest reason why is, I think no matter who wins this presidential election, the Senate’s role of being able to act as a check and balance on bad ideas from the President I think are going to matter more in 2017, than they perhaps ever have in our history.”
“I deeply believe I can contribute to that. I want to contribute to that, and I think whether it’s Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump…we’re going to need Senators to encourage them to make the right decisions.”
Rubio originally said that he would not run for re-election to his Senate seat when he launched his presidential campaign last year, saying that if he lost the presidential race, he planned to be a private citizen after his term ended in January 2017. Rubio had also backed his longtime friend, Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, in the Republican primary for his seat, but after both Rubio and Lopez-Cantera visited Orlando after the mass shooting earlier this month, Lopez-Cantera urged him to reconsider running and offered to step aside.
Among the other Republicans, Rep. David Jolly dropped out earlier this week to run for re-election to his seat against now-Democrat Charlie Crist. Rep. Ron DeSantis is reported to be considering doing the same. Carlos Beruff and Todd Wilcox, on the other hand, are both self-funding and have vowed to stay in the race.
The latest polling showed Rubio as the strongest contender against either of the top two Democrat candidates. “Rubio…leads U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy 47 percent to 40 percent and U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson 48 percent to 40 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University survey of 975 registered Florida voters that has a 3.1 percentage point error margin,” reported Politico’s Florida reporter Marc Caputo.
Rubio’s Senate office released an official statement:
In politics, admitting you’ve changed your mind is not something most people like to do. But here it goes.
I have decided to seek reelection to the United States Senate.
I understand my opponents will try to use this decision to score political points against me. Have at it. Because I have never claimed to be perfect, or to have all the answers.
Still, the people of Florida deserve to know why I’ve changed my mind.
I have often said that the U.S. Senate can be a frustrating place. And it’s true. After witnessing the gridlock that grips Washington, I think just about every American – Democrat or Republican – would agree.
But the Senate is also a place from which you can perform great services for the people you have the honor of representing. And I am proud of the work we have done to help thousands of Floridians over the last six years.
The Senate can also be a place from which great policy advances can be made. I am proud that we have done that too.
But as we begin the next chapter in the history of our nation, there’s another role for the Senate that could end up being its most important in the years to come: The Constitutional power to act as a check and balance on the excesses of a president.
Control of the Senate may very well come down to the race in Florida. That means the future of the Supreme Court will be determined by the Florida Senate seat. It means the future of the disastrous Iran nuclear deal will be determined by the Florida Senate seat. It means the direction of our country’s fiscal and economic policies will be determined by this Senate seat. The stakes for our nation could not be higher.
There’s also something else. No matter who is elected president, there is reason for worry.
With Hillary Clinton, we would have four more years of the same failed economic policies that have left us with a stagnant economy. We would have four more years of the same failed foreign policy that has allowed radical Islam to spread, and terrorists to be released from Guantanamo. And even worse, if Clinton were president and her party took control of Congress, she would govern without Congressional oversight or limit. It would be a repeat of the early years of the current administration, when we got Obamacare, the failed stimulus and a record debt.
The prospect of a Trump presidency is also worrisome to me. It is no secret that I have significant disagreements with Donald Trump. His positions on many key issues are still unknown. And some of his statements, especially about women and minorities, I find not just offensive but unacceptable. If he is elected, we will need Senators willing to encourage him in the right direction, and if necessary, stand up to him. I’ve proven a willingness to do both.
In the days ahead, America will continue to face serious challenges – the possibility of terrorist attacks at home and abroad, a declining military, anemic economic growth and low wages, assaults on our rights and values, outdated health care, education and pension programs in desperate need of reform – that face backward or uncertain responses from either Clinton or Trump.
No matter who wins the White House, we need a strong group of principled, persuasive leaders in Congress who will not only advance limited government, free enterprise and a strong national defense, but also explain to Americans how it makes life better for them and their families. I ultimately changed my mind about this race because on that front, and in that fight, I believe I have something to offer.
In the end, this was a decision made not in Washington, but back home in West Miami over Father’s Day weekend, with my wife and our four children.
There were two paths before us. There was one path that was more personally comfortable and probably smarter politically. But after much thought and prayer, together we chose to continue with public service; to continue down the path that provides the opportunity to make a positive difference at this critical and uncertain time for our nation.
In the end, there was simply too much at stake for any other choice.
Follow Sarah Rumpf on Twitter: @rumpfshaker.
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Comments
Good, I’ll vote for him. One easy choice on the ballot for me in November, at least.
Sigh.
I guess we do have Marco Rubio to kick around a bit more.
I do no trust Rubio, and I do not believe he’ll do a good job.
That said, he’s very likely to be better than his Democrat opponent – so I’ll probably end up holding my nose, and voting for him.
I wish that was the only race for which I had to make that kind of choice this year…
Probably didn’t get any lucrative offers from law firms or
palm-greaserslobbyist groups.And he sure as h3ll doesn’t want to try to work for a living.
Sounds like he measured his options for both personal reasons and for the country. I can’t fault a man for that.
But this just exemplifies what I dislike about modern politics. Why should an election is one state be such a big deal? Sure, he’s a national figure because of his aborted run for the presidency. But because of how our two party system operates, voters in…..I don’t know, Kansas get involved in Florida politics.
This is largely a function/result of everything becoming federalized/centralized.
When you centralize all issues, taking them away from the states and the local government, you necessarily NATIONALIZE all politics. People HAVE to become involved in ways that they normally simply would not.
This is why, for instance, there developed a “religious right”. It was either get involved in national politics or cede the field to the Collective.
I really like Ted Cruz, but I wish I’d stop getting emails asking to donate to his Senate reelection. I have a responsibility in my own state to get involved, not halfway across the country. Get the big money out of politics. I think if the Senators were nominated & confirmed by their state legislatures, people would care a whole lot more about who they send to their own capital.
I can appreciate your sentiment, but I am struck by how . . . different things are now than they were in 2010. At that time, I was living in Massachusetts and horrified by what was happening, the way ObamaCare was being shoved down our throats and any and all dissent was ridiculed and marginalized. While Scott Brown turned out to be a disappointment in many ways, at that time, he was the key–literally, we thought at the time–to stopping ObamaCare. He was going to be the 41st vote against it, thereby ensuring that it never passed. Tea Party patriots from sea to shining sea were sending money, manning (and womaning) phones, coming into Mass by the droves to knock on doors, and donating to internet “money bombs” while tweeting and blogging about the 41st vote.
It was truly amazing, really, particularly when you consider that it was a special election (in January) to replace Ted Kennedy. Of course, because it was the only election going at the time, in addition to the import it had (before Harry Reid did his little “demon pass” oh, it’s a finance bill dance that pushed ObamaCare through by a simple majority), Tea Party types across the country had more resources to pour into it.
That was the sort of thing that had the Obama admin, Democrats, and progressives on both sides of the aisle quaking in their boots. That was one of the reasons it was so imperative they destroy the Tea Party or at least bring it to its knees. For the first time in my memory, conservatives were actually doing something and not just sitting back griping or focused on their own narrow section of the nation (as I will admit, I, too, had been doing prior to 2008), and it mattered. We made a difference. Not just those of us who could vote in Massachusetts but every single person who sent a dollar to the Brown campaign or tweeted about it or came to MA to help on the ground.
The historical significance of that special election will be studied for decades, centuries maybe. That Scott Brown, a Republican running on the specific platform of being the single vote to stop ObamaCare, won progressive, long-time commie-care proponent Ted Kennedy’s seat was monumental. The fact that the Obama administration and Harry Reid’s Senate decided to ignore the clear message and plow ahead with a disastrous bill with the aid of rule manipulation and without a single Republican vote will be analyzed and debated long after we are all dead and gone. We’re still in the middle of it, but that was an important moment that may well be found to have changed the trajectory of our nation.
My point, though, is that we on the right need to recognize that in this age of the internet and social media, of an enormous, lumbering central government–when a single voice or a handful of votes can make a difference–every conservative headed to Congress or hoping to keep his or her seat matters to us. And very much. We can’t just dig in and focus on our own neighborhood or city or county or even state; what happens in D. C. has come to be more significant in terms of impact on our daily lives (repressive regulations, taxes, myriad mandates and on and on), and that is not going to change (except in terms of getting worse) unless we support all conservatives running for either house of Congress, in any district, in any state across this land.
We knew that in 2009 and in 20010, but somehow we seem to have forgotten. It’s worth remembering.
You have it backwards.
Minimize the JOB first by going back to limited government. then folks would SPEND less trying to get such jobs. That, in turn, would require less fund raising.
Yet it is probably true that the original plan to have the states select the Senators, rather than direct elections, would cut down on direct spending. thought their might be more overall spending on all the state legistative seats to affect the Senate selections.
He didn’t even come close to winning his own state in the primaries. I think his cred is pretty much shredded. I hope he gets primaried in Aug.
That word “primary” was a key term in one of my last emails to Rubio. Actually, the best and far more conservative candidate who would have been a successful primary opponent was Ron DeSantis, currently serving in congress. Mitch McConnell and his ilk feared the possibility of having another principled and intelligent member join their ranks and so acted to thrust water boy Marco on the people of Florida again. DeSantis dropped out yesterday with Rubio’s announcement.
I donated to his primary campaign back in 2010. After his run for the presidential nomination, I like him a lot less.
2016 is the year of the [GOP] incumbent. All RINO’s got reflected in primaries on the Trump wave.
I might have things turned around, but I’ve always thought of Rubio as Jeb Bush lite. So, in this regard, as part of the GOP-E. He’ll take on the “bad ideas” of the next President, yet sat on his hands while Poopertrator-in-Chief carried out his horrendous agenda.
“Checks and balances”? Yeah, right.
I supported Rubio for President, I have been following him in the Senate for years as he worked for his home state and will look forward to supporting him in any endeavor he chooses. I’m not a fan and I’ve seen mistakes he’s made (IMO this Senate run is one, in fact) but his vision of who we are as a nation and a people is the one I want elected officials articulating and working toward.
His vision of unlimited immigration is a nightmare. You can keep it.
It takes a certain … let’s just say, intellectual flexibility … to moan about “gridlock” but a few sentences later get all giggly about being able to sic those ol’ checks and balances on the President. So, is “getting things done” the paramount job, or not? There’s also the disturbing detail that the surest way to “get things done” is to surrender to the Democrats; then they can get things done. Or rather, do things to us … like Obamacare. And “compromise” gun-control bills.
And his logic is ominous. The Senate is important because Big Issues are brewing. Therefore (this is where it gets spacey) I, Marco, should be one of those Senators, because I, Marco, can do … uhhh … something that the other career political hacks can’t … and if anyone can think of what that is, please give me a hint.
Put him on a horse at the head of an army and he can save la patrie.
Riiiight.
Well, I suppose I never really expected the Age of Pygmies in Office to end with Obama.
I feel betrayed by Rubio over lying to me and other supporters in 2008. But, the Republican leading in the polls before he announced was a paid for shill for the Scientology cult, and the leading Democrat is the odious Alan Grayson.
Rubio endorsed Trump and seems to understand why he got blown out in Florida. If he would only replace his advisory staff (who thought that teaming up with Schumer was a good idea), then it would be very easy to support Rubio in this election.
2010, not 2008
He has been lying for 20 years, since his time on the West Miami commission. Far too many people are ignorant of how extensive Marco’s record of deceit and sleaze really is.
I think I’d rather vote for someone who can figure out on his own that becoming Schumer’s pet Republican and doing the exact opposite of what he said throughout his campaign he would do is a bad idea. I wouldn’t need someone to tell me that, would you?
What will you do if there’s no such person on the ballot?
I will vote for him as I did six years ago. He was not my presidential choice because of his immigration stance and his letting himself get rolled by Schumer and his merry band of horsemen.
Didn’t he stall a Senate bill that would have bailed out insurance companies on their Obama-don’t-care policies? Seems to me he’s done something good.
Unfortunately, corruption is so rampant, the state legislatures are long gone as bulwark’s against federal corruption. Think of the Illinois legislature that had Obama mysteriously reelected several times by the skin of his Kenyan teeth; California’s corrupt, one-party legislature; NY’s corrupt one-party legislature… The list goes on.
Never forget Rubio and the Gang of Eight: his judgment sucks.
Nobody like that on the ballot.
Rubio would be ok if he dumped the small time West Miami gangsters advising him. (David Rivera, a convicted gangster who extorted money from the Dog racing tracks, lived in his house with Rubio’s family for two years in Washington while Rubio was a Senator).
And again, the other choices are a Scientology shill on the Republican side or Alan Grayson on the Democrat side.