Trump has even trademarked the phrase “Make America Great Again”.
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“No, No, No”, he said, waving off the cocktail. “I feel like I’m making a contribution to keep him strong”. (There was laughter and applause at Rubio’s familiar water joke.) “You guys are messing up my stump speech”, he grinned, taking a sip from the tacitas.
Trump and Rubio have had an ongoing feud over the last month as Trump’s polling numbers continue to decline and Rubio’s continue to rise. Still, among Republicans here in Nevada, he’s certainly got buzz. As speaker of the Florida House in 2006, Rubio spent $550,000 in part to relocate the members-only dining room in the Capitol Building because he wanted more lawmakers to vote.
Half of all the donations to presidential candidates in the 2016 election have come from only 158 families, according to a New York Times investigation, and eight of them are neighbors in River Oaks. This assumes, of course, there still is a Democratic primary race at that time. “Do you know if the deal gets rejected they still get the money?”
“No, I gotta earn that”, Rubio quickly responded. “Particularly the last debate”.
Trump himself took on Rubio at a Vegas rally Thursday, mimicking the senator’s infamous water-bottle reach when Rubio delivered the 2013 GOP State of the Union response live on television. He has ground game, he has top-notch local advisers and high profile support.
Rubio likes to say he feels at home here.
Now, stuck stubbornly in the middle of the pack in most national polling, Bush has recently seen a rash of media reports outlining complaints and frustrations from donors who believe he needs to reconfigure his campaign. He drops the kind of references that have currency with the locals: like the fact that his mother worked as a maid here at the Imperial Palace. “We should support the President because that was better than inaction”.
Representatives from seven campaigns contacted him, including the campaigns of Bush and Rubio. “Marco Rubio’s answer on this issue is as absent as his voting record, and this is just another example of his failure to lead”. “That’s billions of dollars that can go anywhere else other than building a wall”. Jeb Bush made a similar case. One striking note at Rubio events this week was the number of Republicans who said they’d never support Trump, but used Trump’s “low-energy” critique to explain why they are far more interested in Rubio than Bush.
On Saturday, Rubio will venture out of Las Vegas to Boulder City.
Venegas said he hopes Rubio will stay the course “slow, steady and rising”.
The race to replace Marco Rubio in the Senate is turning blue.
He has found Rubio to be a “refreshing conservative leader who has a track record of experience”. We really are growing – in the Hispanic population I think we are at 24% now.
His views are only marginally different from many other hopefuls: He opposed a government shutdown, though he favors defunding Planned Parenthood; he enabled Ohio to participate in the Medicaid expansion through Obamacare; and he favors legal status for undocumented immigrants.
If you want to see a slightly NSFW shot of Bush’s elbow deep in a cow’s behind, we’ll let you click over to it.
Explaining attacks on Rubio from both outsider and establishment rivals, Politico’s Glenn Thrush said, “No other candidate poses such a threat to either flank, so he should take it as a compliment”.
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For several weeks, since the first debate, I have said I like Trump’s ideas, his “aggressive” nature, but frankly, I am now questioning his ridiculous judgement.
