One thing recent political history has shown us is that incremental, step-by-step reforms are more palatable and concretely implementable than bloated, overreaching ones.
By taking the lead on this summer’s expansive Senate immigration bill, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida hoped to carve out a place for himself as head of the GOP and perhaps position himself for a presidential run in 2016. That bill passed the Senate in June with all Democrats and 14 Republicans voting yes.
Marco Rubio (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)
But as a post over at Hot Air lays out well, more recently, Rubio’s changed his tune and is backing away from the Senate’s comprehensive bill for a more measured approach through individually-focused bills.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said that "a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” By that criterion then Rubio, who’s sought to portray himself as a sensible leader on a hot-button issue, is falling short through his contradictory behavior. Rubio’s gone on record claiming he’s always favored a cumulative rather than blitzkrieg approach, yet serving as a mouthpiece for the Gang of Eight suggests otherwise. Rubio voted for the Senate bill but now doesn’t want the House to take up his own brainchild.
The Senate bill does have plenty of valuable ideas, and if Rubio hoped earlier to see any of them to fruition it would have helped to engage members of the House on aspects that resonate with their conservative constituents. For example, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board describes the practical financial implications of the Senate bill, which would help ease the impending Social Security deficit by “shift[ing] U.S. immigration policy somewhat more toward skills-based entry rather than family unification.” This concept is one that should appeal to the likes of fiscal hawks in the mold of House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Rubio’s narrowed approach is now ascribed to a backpedaling panderer; if he’d done this earlier in the year he’d have been hailed by the right as a Solomonic sage.
