On Friday, January 29, 2016, Senator Marco Rubio visited Clinton, IA, searching for voters who will caucus for him. I went early in order to get a front row seat at Vista Grande. As it turned out, there were enough seats for everyone. He had about a fifth of the crowd that Bernie and Hillary drew [on Saturday, January 23].
He was on time, at 3:30 p.m. The people politely cheered as he entered the room. Quickly he took to the microphone and repeated his stump speech with class and enthusiasm. Rubio is strikingly good looking and has what often is termed charisma or charm. He exudes sincerity. He tells a striking story about his immigrant parents. He speaks of the disastrous years of President Obama’s reign and opines that, if Democrats win in November, America will never be the same.
His applause lines were easy, unoriginal, and cheap. They echoed virtually every Republican seeking their party’s nomination.
What is really disturbing is the ignorance he displayed. Applause line: “When I’m President, I will end Federal taxpayer money from funding abortions overseas!” The audience did applause. Apparently, neither they nor Rubio had ever heard of the Hyde Amendment, which did exactly that back in 1976 and which still applies today. Oh, well, Marco was only five years old when that happened.
Perhaps more disturbing was the answer he gave to a college student who asked about reducing our stock pile of nuclear weapons. His position was that we should modernize our nukes and increase the number of tactical nukes in our possession–definitely a Cold War mentality. Then (another applause line) he shouted, “As President, I will tear-up the Iran Treaty!”
There are a few problems here. First, it is a United Nations Treaty with Iran, not a U. S. Treaty ratified by the U. S. Senate. So he can’t “tear it up.” Second, if it were a U. S. Treaty with Iran, he would need Senate approval, by the same two-thirds vote that ratified it. This didn’t seem to bother his audience. Whatever happened to teaching Civics?
Then he launched into a tirade against the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that the Ayatollah believed all non-Muslims should be killed. That is a stupid and dangerous statement to make! It demonstrates that Rubio understands next to nothing about Islam. He is confusing Shia Islam with Wahabi Islam. The former is peculiar to Iran, but the latter is prominent in Saudi Arabia–which is largely Sunni Islam. Osama bin Laden belonged to the Wahabi sect.
I asked Rubio where he stood on the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty, which is coming up for a vote in the Senate. This treaty is bigger than NAFTA and CAFTA put together. He hadn’t heard of it! His answer was, “If it’s good, I’ll vote for it, and if it’s bad, I won’t.”
OOOH-kay, so much for Rubio. I don’t think there’s any hope!