Marco Rubio shines bright at Jeb-less Lincoln Day Dinner

“Marco! Marco! Marco! Marco!”

Sen. Marco Rubio was in da house Saturday night. His house.

The former West Miami Commissioner, state rep and House Speaker was definitely among friends and fans when he spoke at the Miami-Dade Lincoln Day Dinner as a real contender for president.

There were about 20 protesters outside, rallied by the Miami-Dade Democratic Party to call attention to his shift in immigration policy. But they were outdone and overshadowed by the close to 750 people inside the Doubletree Hotel near Miami International Airport, most of whom paid $150 a ticket ($300 for VIP access) to sit at a table in the same room with him and hear one of the best political orators in U.S. history.

It cost considerably more to sit on the $20,000 table with Rubio and his wife, Jeanette.

The GOP fundraiser is the largest source of income for the Republican Party of Miami-Dade and it sold out for the first time in 25 years, said Chairman Nelson Diaz. The crowd of longtime Republican committee members and volunteers was peppered with dozens of elected officials — you couldn’t walk two feet without running into another one — including Sen. Anitere Flores, who introduced her “political brother,” Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, who introduced Rubio after announcing his unadulterated support.

There were a few standouts whose absence was palpable. Congress members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo — as well as former Congressman Lincoln Diaz Balart — were not in the room. Probably because they were next to that other POTUS candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, when he announced his own run for president last week.

But while Bush wasn’t there physically, his presence was certainly hanging in the room like a thin mist or like the chandeliers that looked like drum sets. Some of the attendees — though in the minority there — told Ladra that they were still torn between our two local candidates and that they still hadn’t made up their minds on whom to support. That didn’t stop them from lining up for selfies with the Senator — which made the 30-second walk from the podium out the room a 20-minute ordeal.

And while that other POTUS candidate was mentioned at some of the dinner tables, Jeb Bush became He Who Will Not Be Named on stage.

There were definite references to him, though.

Flores said she was proud that not just one but two locals had made it to the long list of potential 2016 White House occupants.

“That is not a coincidence. It is an incredible testament to see the future of our party starting right here in South Florida,” Flores said. Referring to Rubio specifically: “I’m real blessed to say that we knew him when.”

Rubio made one of his more casual and less provocative speeches, chock-full of his campaign staples: As our president, he would restore military spending, increase the child tax credit, repeal and replace Obamacare “before it repeals and replaces more American jobs,” reign in the national debt, remove tax code penalties for marriage, make it easier for small businesses to succeed, strengthen ties with Israel and other allies and promote Democracy in China, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela.

But he, too, made several references to that other White House wannabe without naming names, joking that Miami has “more candidates per capita than any other city.”

“I am not running against any of my fellow Republicans,” Rubio said. “I know they want us to fight. I know they want us to argue. It makes for better articles, better news stories… but the truth is, after nine months, every single one of us will be on the same side.”

Wait. Is this the same guy who called Charlie Crist a RINO during their heated race for the Senate seat he has now? Why, yes, it is. And Ladra expects some of the same labels to come out against Bush in the nine months between now and when everyone is on the same side. Maybe on Common Core, the educational standards that Bush champions and that got a little dig from Rubio Saturday.

“We still improved our schools without Common Core,” he said, referring to his stint in the Florida House.

“I’ve been told it isn’t my turn to run for president,” Rubio said, in what most of us believe is a reference to Ros-Lehtinen, et al. The establishment is reportedly peeved that the 44-year-old firebrand senator isn’t waiting until 2020 or beyond.

“They also said it wasn’t my turn when I ran for Senate in 2009. All the establishment told me I couldn’t win.”

Ah, so he does remember running against Charlie Crist.

“I’ve also heard I’m not rich enough to be president,” he said, though that could have been as much a jab to the clown act that is millionaire Donald Trump, who announced his presidential bid last week, as to Bush, whose net worth has grown to $10 million in the seven years since he left the Governor’s mansion.

Rubio ended his speech with the story again about how his parents struggled to make a better life for him, how his father worked as a bartender in the back of a hotel ballroom much like the one we were in so that he could one day stand at a podium in the front of the room.

“The biggest debt I have is to America,” he said. “It’s not just the country I was born in. It’s literally the country that changed my family’s future.”

That other candidate can’t say that, can he?

Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Miami-Dade Republican Party, Presidential race 2016

Marco Rubio shines bright at Jeb-less Lincoln Day Dinner added by Ladra on June 21, 2015
View all posts by Ladra →