Quote of the week—and the trouble with Rubio

This election is nothing less than a referendum on our identity as a nation and as a people, [a historic moment] when people were pushed to the brink.
—U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio, speaking in St. Augustine, Florida

(But see the bad news about Rubio, below.)

And another powerful quote, from the same article:

Senior Democrats are reluctantly concluding that it’s time to hit the panic button. They understand that it’s not a characteristic of a tsunami to make a U-turn, and the hour is growing late.

Cautious Republicans are rightly wary of “peaking too soon,” which haunts the dreams and wishes of every candidate and campaign consultant, but the tsunami seems to be still building, already capable of crushing everything in its path.
Wesley Pruden, The Washington Times, September 20, 2010

I understand that Pruden is only reporting what is happening and what the politicos themselves are saying. But I strongly feel that one should not live on predictions and hopes, which could very likely be dashed. The election will take place when it takes place.

Also, I never felt it was realistic to believe that the Republicans could win the Senate, so I’m not particularly invested in that outcome. The GOP establishment types, such as Karl Rove and John Hinderaker, were deeply invested in it, which was why they were so upset when Chistine O’Donnell defeated the liberal Republican Michael Castle. As Tim W. explained in an illuminating comment, the elites want Republican rule for the sake of Republican rule, even if that means giving Republican “moderates” effective sway over the course of political events. True conservatives would just as soon wait until they can have a true conservative majority.

- end of initial entry -

David M. writes:

I heard Rubio at some speaking engagement or another; I believe it was a clip on one of the many blog sites I go to.

Rubio sounded great, and then wrecked it all by shifting to Spanish. Not for a phrase or even a sentence or two. He went into full George W. Bush pander mode. After three or four minutes I tuned away; my esteem for the man dropping like a stone. Unlike the panderers in the Southwest who seek votes from the MEChA/LaRaza crowd, he was pandering to an arrogant subset of voters in Miami-Dade. The ones we took in in 1959 but who refuse to adopt our language, and who have taught their children and grandchildren that they do not need America’s language or customs. Indeed, they look down their noses at the very people who gave them a helping hand.

I am not a Floridian so how I would vote means nothing. If I were, I’d leave that part of the ballot blank, or vote third-party. This man wants to cater to the hyphen-American crowd; let him get his votes there.

LA replies:

I’ve prevously had the concern about Rubio that he was very fluid at putting forth a conservative message, but then the message would turn neocon and America is just a big universal idea.

What you’re describing is along the same lines, but worse. Thanks for telling us this bad news—we have to know the truth. From my experience, these “conservative” Cuban-Americans are among the worst. They get in the conservative door, and once there, they are aggressive promoters of the Hispanicization of the U.S. Though they are white and “conservative,” they are loyal to their left-wing brown fellow Hispanics, wanting to increase their numbers in the U.S.via immigration, and hostile to white conservative Americans who want to reduce this immigration. I wish the Communist regime would die in Cuba, and all the Cuban-Americans would return there.

LA adds:

There was, however, one Cuban I very much wanted to stay in the U.S., and whose forcible return to Cuba was a terrible stain on our country—Elian Gonzalez. I was the only right-wing immigration restrictionist who sided with Elian and his U.S. relatives against the Clinton administration and the Castro government who wanted to return him to Cuba. This was not an immigration issue, it was a moral issue.

James P. writes:

You wrote:

“I wish the Communist regime would die in Cuba, and all the Cuban-Americans would return there.”

The most probable outcome of the fall of the Communist regime in Cuba is a flood of Cubans coming here.

Mark Jaws writes:

I am still high on Rubio, and I am still high on Cuban Americans. The ones I have met, are real conservatives. We divide and conquer Hispanics through welfare, by posing the question to Hispanic conservatives and moderates, “Are you with us, the producers, or with them, the welfare mongering parasites, whom we can no longer afford to support and tolerate?” The fault line is the pocketbook, and color.

JC from Houston writes:

LA is right to be skeptical of Cuban-Americans. The so called conservative Republican Cuban-American representatives in Florida have always been pro open borders and amnesty. Congresspersons Lincoln Diaz-Balart (the nephew of Fidel Castro’s first wife) and Ilena Ros-Lehtinen, not to mention retiring senator Mel Martinez are all amnesty open borders hacks. They have only been Republican all these years because of their hatred of Fidel Castro. It’s interesting to note that the only Cuban-American in the Senate is Robert Menendez, a left wing Democrat whose parents fled the Cuba of Fulgencio Batista (not Castro) in the early 1950s. As for Mark’s suggestion that we should try to separate the Hispanic producers from the takers I can only say, what planet is he living on? This vast Mexican-Central American underclass has an average educational level of 6th grade. They are much happer taking. Damn few of them are producers.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 24, 2010 08:27 AM | Send