Monthly Archives: April 2015

9 Which Lesson Has Rubio Learned?

Why Doesn’t Rubio Answer Bob Scheiffer’s Question? — Part II: I was wrong to suggest that Marco Rubio couldn’t say he’d learned his lesson on immigration but also admit — as he refused to do on CBS — that he’d sign his old “Gang of 8 bill” if he were president and it came to his desk. Depends on what lesson Rubio’s learned:

1) Lesson 1:  Rubio could say “Yes, I’d sign it. ” The bill’s OK, he thinks. But he’s learned that enacting it is a political impossibility. “We can’t do it.”  Voters simply won’t go along with an amnesty until they see that the border is secure. This answer would get Rubio off the hook for pushing a bad bill. But it also implies that the voters are wrong — specifically, wrong to be paranoid about trying to legalize before border security measures are firmly in place. Since that’s exactly what the Gang of 8 bill does, Rubio shouldn’t sign it if the voters are right.

2) Lesson 2: Rubio could say, “No I wouldn’t sign it. It’s not merely politically impossible. I’ve realized it’s a bad gamble to legalize now and hope enforcement measures actually happen later. Voters are right to be paranoid.” This is the lesson many Democrats, ethnic lobbyists and Republican donors don’t want to hear Rubio say he’s learned. It would make getting Dem support for an immigration bill much more difficult. But it’s the substantive admission many GOP primary voters would like to hear. Were they wrong to be paranoid, or right?

If Rubio wants their vote, it seems like he should answer. Otherwise they’ll (rightly) conclude he thinks they’re wrong, or he just doesn’t care — and he’s likely to try to slip a Gang-of-8-style “legalize first/enforce later” bill past them at the earliest opportunity.

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Jeb would seem to desperately need @murphymike traveling with him. Exile to campaign’s evil twin SuperPAC = mistake t.usnews.com/Z7hz13

| 10 years ago on Twitter

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Don’t think even going meta (“continue talking … I want to be better at this”) will make Jeb more exciting. t.usnews.com/Z7hz13

| 10 years ago on Twitter

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Even the articles about how boring Bush is on the stump will soon get boring. t.usnews.com/Z7hz13

| 10 years ago on Twitter

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CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED: “If you’re looking for Woodrow Wilson, that might be Jeb,” — Republican *friend* of Bush’s t.usnews.com/Z7hz13

| 10 years ago on Twitter

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“Forcing Black Men Out of Society”: The New York Times ed board righteously decries the “shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers” — yet supports mass low-skilled immigr … Oh I give up.

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WHCD ’15: I’ve been boycotting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on principle ever since I stopped getting invited (except for the couple three or four — OK, it was six or seven — times I snuck in). An absurd event, of course — close to my vision of Hell. The Hilton ballroom is circled with rings of yellowish light, and it’s easy to imagine them as the flaming pits into which lobbyists are hurled in the afterlife. The Bosch-like qualities are part of what makes it fabulously enjoyable, especially for non-bigshots, assuming they still let non-bigshots attend. You may not be paid well, but it’s worth a month’s salary to feel you are part of this powerful, corrupt, yet insecure, preening and tacky fake community. Sorry I missed it.

Update: Daily Beast‘s Lloyd Grove ably uses the event to divine the capital’s mood! (“‘The Obama people are really bitter.'”) …

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Looks like Walker hasn’t just not changed his immigration stance — he’s toughened it nyti.ms/1OPScaH Cruz now neutered on issue?

| 10 years ago on Twitter

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As with income inequality and Obama, these proposed fixes don’t come close to solving the problem. politico.com/magazine/story…

| 10 years ago on Twitter

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Kausfiles demands Comcast drop its merger plans: An old Ralph Nader trick, I’m told, was that when he found out the government was about to do something he immediately called a press conference and demanded that they do it. Presente.org, the indeterminately vaporous Latino lobbying organization, seems to be borrowing a related page from the same book, shooting out an email today (after this press report):

PRESENTE.ORG: COMCAST MERGER COLLAPSE WOULD BE HUGE WIN FOR LATINOS

So should the merger happen to collapse in the next day or so, you know whom to credit: Kausfiles! It would be a huge win for American workers beset by illegal immigrant competition and high cable prices. …

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If you want to read only the non-Tweet items on kausfiles, just click on “uncategorized” — or use this link: kausfiles.com/category/uncat…

| 10 years ago on Twitter