Marco Rubio comes home to young supporters at Sidebar

In what may be one of the most stark contrasts between the two Miami men who would be president — not counting the crazy millionaire who is seriously deluded — young Jeb Bush supporters get Jebby, the candidate’s son, to rally them at South Florida events while Sen. Marco Rubio‘s fans get the real McCoy.

That’s right. Rubio himself came home to Miami over the weekend to attend a fundraiser Saturday night with more than 150 of those oh-so-coveted young supporters. Certainly they identify more with Rubio, 44, than Bush, 62. They were there to spend “Happy Hour with the next President of the United States.” That is how the event was framed and that is what most if not all the people who swarmed the hip lounge between Brickell and The Roads think they did: Gotta get that selfie with him now before he’s covered in Secret Service and then you can say you knew him when.

The Sidebar became a campaign stop Saturday evening, but it was more than that. Like every time Rubio steps back into the 305, the event was a homecoming.

But, in what may be another stark difference, there wasn’t a bevy of elected officials waiting in the greeting line to get their five minutes with the next POTUS. Practically the whole Miami-Dade delegation and every GOP congress member goes to the Bush events, but there were few electeds at Rubio’s happy hour: Just Sen. Rene Garcia and Coral Gables Commissioner Vince Lago, former State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez — who must be having some serious public office withdrawals since losing his bid for the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser’s seat — and former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who has been seen around in recent weeks, at lunch some weeks ago with Commissioner Xavier Suarez at La Loggia and even taking to twitter to make his political points. But there were more voters, more Young Republican Club members and Hialeah Republican Club members and Rubio was reportedly relaxed. Por supuesto. Estaba en su elemento.

And it was happy hour.

“There’s no place I’d rather be than here. The moment I walked in, I knew I was in Miami. I love coming home,” he said. Or something like that. Ladra wasn’t there but several people mentioned it.

He swayed a little from his stump speech to sound a little more casual and playful with this voter bloc made up of his own generation and the one that came after. He made a joke about someone taking all the news space lately, not Donald Trump but Pope Francis.

“The interesting thing about it, and I’ve been to a lot of fundraisers, is that the night had a different feel,” said Commissioner Lago, who was on the host committee. “It was very down to Earth, intimate. He had one-on-one conversations with everyone and took the time to meet every single individual there.

“He spoke passionately about his humble upbringing and spoke directly to young professionals, stating that we are the future,” said Lago, who also contributed $1,000 to the campaign. “He let us know that it was in our best interest to become active and engage our friends and families in the political process.

“People feel out of the process and he made them feel like part of the process.”

Lago had not met Rubio before Saturday night, though he had spoken by phone and had researched him and decided that the senator mirrored his own ideas and policies more than any other candidate.

But Gonzalez, Garcia and Alex DLP were there to support an old friend.

“Marco is an unabashed conservative and the high energy boost our party needs,” The Dean told Ladra. “He is a knowledgeable and articulate leader who is about the future and not the past. He is precisely what we need at the time we need it. He connects with us because he is one of us and it shows.”

Those were almost exactly the words used by pollster Armando Ibarra, another host of the event. “This is his base and it shows,” Ibarra said. “Senatory Rubio connects with young people in a way that no other candidate can. There’s an excitement that doesn’t exist with anyone else.”

Rubio is definitely reaching out to young voters. His playful video commercial in which he catches (and misses) footballs while answering some relevant and some irrelevant (read: fun) questions is quite popular with the under 40 crowd.

And his gains there might be one reason why Rubio is surging in polls and was recently picked by the biggest online prediction site as the man to beat.

Ibarra and Lago said that there would likely be another happy hour event with the next president of the United States before the year’s end.

Alex Diaz de la Portilla, Marco Rubio, Vince Lago

Marco Rubio comes home to young supporters at Sidebar added by Ladra on September 30, 2015
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