Rubio Can Be a Winning Voice for the GOP

By Celina Durgin
Friday, February 19, 2016

Senator Marco Rubio’s performance in CNN’s GOP town hall Wednesday was a 45-minute lesson on how to articulate conservative Republican ideas.

Some conservative voters might prefer, for example, Senator Ted Cruz’s approach to Syria policy or his push to abolish the IRS. But in terms of being able to attractively and convincingly communicate the value of conservative ideas to everyone, regardless of race or class, Rubio may be unmatched among the Republican candidates. His rhetorical ability and political talent alone make him an asset to the Republican party.

Representative Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.), who has endorsed Rubio, cut an ad Tuesday in South Carolina that concluded, “Democrats fear Marco the most.” A New York Times headline from May declared that “A Hillary Clinton Match-Up With Marco Rubio Is a Scary Thought for Democrats” — as it should be if polling indicates anything. Rubio is the only Republican candidate since August who has consistently beaten Clinton in head-to-head poll matchups, such as those conducted by NBC/WSJ, Quinnipiac, and USA Today/Suffolk University.

The roots of his appeal are manifold. His relatability and charm contrast starkly with Mitt Romney’s wealth, John McCain’s woodenness, and Donald Trump’s loud-mouthed egotism (to say nothing of Hillary Clinton, overall). Rubio had student loans; he postdated checks; and he smiles about the future while others yell and warn of America’s demise. His humor is self-deprecating without being pathetic — he has joked about his colorblindness, his high-heeled boots, and about having a football-addled head.

A president like Rubio could help transform the perception of how Republicans handle race and class issues. During the CNN town hall, he demonstrated sincerity and empathy by employing personal narrative when asked how, in light of such events as the Charleston church shooting of nine African Americans, he would address racism without being divisive.

With his response, Rubio appeared to take seriously the lived experiences of minorities, recounting that an African-American friend of his, who is a police officer, was pulled over about eight times over several years for no reason. He had earlier recounted the story on Fox News, when discussing legitimate reasons for the anger of Black Lives Matter. Criminal-justice reform might be a truly bipartisan concern, and Rubio has been the most prominent Republican candidate to spotlight it.

It has been said that Rubio’s Cuban heritage will not be enough to win more minority votes for the Republican party. And it shouldn’t be. Republicans should not exploit a candidate’s minority status as a tool to gain power, as Democrats often do. Rather, Republicans can reach minority voters by offering alternative ideas and policies to the Democratic ones that have failed them, as in Baltimore and Detroit. Nonetheless, Rubio’s life story has been an undeniable rhetorical advantage.

He speaks to the unique problems facing minorities, including those he faced, while stressing that his parents didn’t raise him to feel like a victim. This is how conservative Republicans should discuss issues of race: They can and should acknowledge minorities’ setbacks while emphasizing the role of family and personal virtue in overcoming them. At the town hall, Rubio described a childhood experience when kids taunted him and his immigrant family, telling them to return to Cuba. He said he “saw it as a reflection on those kids, not a reflection on America.” Again he recognizes the reality of prejudice, but he condemns the individuals who are to blame, rather than condemning all of America as profoundly racist.

At another town hall in South Carolina, an African American in Rubio’s audience said that his friend believes Republicans don’t want African Americans in the party, and asked how Rubio could counter that belief. Before answering directly and in detail, Rubio highlighted a path to unity and Republican inclusivity: “We’re Americans. That’s what we are. And we face many of the same challenges.” Conservative Republicans have something progressive Democrats don’t: an alternative to tribalism.

Rubio frames tax and school reform as ways to aid poor and minority communities. He has said that “we cannot fulfill our potential as a nation” unless we address their problems – which include “academic underperformance, broken homes, dangerous neighborhoods, substandard housing, and being forced by government to attend a failing school.” His solutions include a generous child tax credit, school choice, and student-loan reform. These policies are specifically conservative because they are designed to empower and liberate individuals and families to succeed — not to transfer more money and power away from the people to bureaucracy and failed welfare programs.

In discussing a positive conservative effort to help the underprivileged — who often don’t have strong families — Rubio invokes private-sector initiatives, such as the nonprofit Harlem Children’s Zone. In several speeches, he has submitted that perhaps government cannot solve many entrenched social problems; if that had been President Lyndon B. Johnson’s attitude, minority communities might not be suffering as greatly as they are today.

The radical idea that the government can’t fix everything underlies the principle of limited government. In this age, progressives treat rights as synonymous with preferences, and with desires that can’t be fulfilled without the government (e.g., the “right” to universal health care). Rubio has reminded audiences what the word “right” originally meant. In his Iowa speech following the caucus results, he stated, “Our rights come from our Creator. They do not come from our government.” Rights are intrinsic to our humanity.

Rubio has also delivered economic-policy proposals based on limited-government principles. Today, people such as Bernie Sanders supporters want government to break up the big banks, while overlooking the role the Federal Reserve played in the mortgage crisis. Keynesians such as Paul Krugman consider it axiomatic that the Fed is supposed to stimulate the economy. In contrast, Rubio has said point blank, “It’s not the Fed’s job to stimulate the economy,” adding that the Fed is nothing more than a central bank, and its job should be to provide stable currency. This simple yet accurate explanation is immediately clarifying to many, especially young people, for whom the mere words “Federal Reserve” might be opaque.

Finally, on national security, Rubio has looked back to a limited-government notion that is present in the Federalist Papers and the Constitution but now seems almost quaint: that the president is primarily the commander-in-chief. Whereas the government might be unable to fix social brokenness, national security and foreign relations are explicit duties of the American executive.

Along this line, conservative Republicans ought expressly to ground their position on today’s issues in original principles. If they do so effectively, they will place present concerns in historical context and make clear the relevance of founding ideals.

Perhaps no set of concerns elicits more indignation than social issues. In New Hampshire, a gay man asked Rubio, “Why do you want to put me back in the closet?”  Again Rubio modeled a conservative response: “I don’t. You can live any way you want. I just believe marriage is between one man and one woman. . . . I think that’s what the law should be. And if you disagree you should have the law changed by a legislature. . . . I respect your view.” No hedging, no gratuitous divisiveness. In that context, it was best to redirect the conversation to the people’s power to vote on public issues.

On abortion, Rubio has shown himself capable of defending the rights of the unborn with some depth, without letting opponents portray him as anti-woman. In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Rubio defended the strongly pro-life view, often considered extreme, that rape and incest do not justify abortion: “I personally and honestly and deeply believe that all human life is worthy of protection, irrespective of the circumstances in which that human life was created.” Tragedy is not healed with more tragedy, he explained. When Cuomo countered that his position is at odds with modern women’s views, Rubio replied, “The value of human life is a timeless principle.” Then, indignantly, he repeated the scientific fact that the human embryo is fully human. The combination of compassion, indignation, and facts can make the pro-life issue a winning one.

Think of the negative perceptions of the Republican party: It’s anti-women, crazy, unappealing to the young and forward-looking, racist, wealthy, uncompassionate. Rubio’s charm, his unifying and future-focused rhetoric, his regard for minorities and the underprivileged, and his skill at making social conservatism seem attractive and timeless, all serve to challenge those perceptions. Rubio is not a perfect candidate. But if conservatives and Republicans are to have a future, and persuasive voice, they will look and sound something like him.