The Florida US senator has missed a lot of votes as he campaigns across the country for the Republican presidential nomination, but there’s more to his absences than just his desire to be elected president, the Washington Post suggests.
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But Rubio had arrived at one of the least ambitious moments in Senate history, and saw many of his ideas fizzle.
In his first year, his debt-cutting measure was killed by Democrats while Republicans killed his immigration reform plans. Remember when he pounded his chest not too long ago about immigration reform be tried to push through, only to run away from the issue later? There’s no question. But the Republican leadership, after having won the Senate, when they told us all those years, “Hey, we can’t do anything with just the House.
And number two, because it was right before the election”, Rubio said of Clinton’s testimony about the attack and the State Department’s subsequent response. In 2014, a year before he even announced his presidential campaign, Rubio was in the Top 15, missing 45 out of the 657 Senate votes taken that year – an abstention rate of 6.8%. He cast a vote for the first time in 26 days.
Asked by Gangel if his “not showing up” meant he was not performing – “not doing [his] job by voting” – Rubio said: “Not true, not true”.
That’s, at best, a tricky argument to make.
In a piece published Sunday night, the Washington Post said Rubio has given up on the Senate as too slow and too rule-bound. Rubio’s apathy might not be inspiring, but if there is a way to deal constructively with our current state of affairs, no one else in Congress has found it either. “They’re not going to pass, and even if they did, the President would veto them”.
“People may think she had a good week, I think this is the week it was proven she lied about Benghazi”, he said.
Had Rubio not come out at the debate and mentioned it himself, followed by taking questions on it from reporters, I might have written this story off as just another piece of Beltway gossip.
In national polls, Rubio peaked at second place at 14 percent support in May, trailing only Bush, who then was in the lead.
Look for Rubio to come on strong in the debate this week.
Instead, by intentionally flying under the radar, Rubio’s campaign could be “setting themselves up for when they expect the Trumps and, maybe, the Carsons to collapse”. But Rubio was aiming at people who didn’t know – people on the other side of a TV camera.
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Jeb Bush, Jr., the son of GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, recently went after Rubio on his Senate attendance, saying he should “either drop out or do something, but we’re paying you to do something, it ain’t run for president”. But, Rubio said, he was still told to be patient.
