Marco Rubio comes home to low-key gig for neighbors, pals

It’s more of a homecoming than any other South Florida event. Because when Sen. Marco Rubio greets 500 or 600 or so people at the community center in West Miami Saturday morning, he’ll be talking to neighbors and friends and the people who voted for him the very first time he ever ran for office.

“It is such a special thing that the name of the event is ‘Where It All Began,'” said Miami-Dade Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, who is known as his political godmother. She walked with Rubio when he knocked on his first doors.

The low-key breakfast — really, just pastelitos and such will be served — has not been advertised. Invitations were sent out to some residents (read: Republicans) of West Miami, the senator’s friends and relatives and former residents who lived in the tiny city of 6,240 when Rubio was first elected to the commission in 1998.

“This is a real people event” Sosa said. “This is for Marco to show that he appreciates his beginnings, that he doesn’t forget where he comes from and the people who allowed him and helped him start on this path since Day One.”

Sosa, City Manager Yolanda Aguilar and Team Marco campaign adviser Javi Correoso — off last year’s victory defeating the medical marijuana ballot initiative — spent hours late Friday moving chairs and setting up red, white and blue balloons for the 8 a.m. event.

At $20 for a minimum contribution, it is also an opportunity for small donors to get a little face time with the man who could become the first Hispanic president of the United States, a man used to fetching $1,000 a plate for his fundraisers. But this isn’t really a fundraiser. Sosa said it was a grassroots homecoming. It sounds more like a getty with some old pals.

And while our other favorite son, former Florida Gov. Jeb! Bush, might still have the perceived establishment support among Republican electeds, there are a bunch of them on the host committee for Rubio’s event, including State Sens. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla and Rene Garcia, State Reps. Bryan Avila andJeanette Nunez, County Commissioner Esteban Bovo, Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, Hialeah Gardens Mayor Yioset de la Cruz, Hialeah Councilman Luis Rodriguez, Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez, Miami Lakes Councilmen Manny Cid and Tony Lama and Coral Gables Commissioner Vince Lago, among others.

Expect his typical stump speech to be shorter. After all, these are the people who already know him. They know his family. They know his story. They don’t need to hear the whole spiel about the bartending at the back of the room so he could stand at the front. And Rubio — who has surged to number two for the nomination, behind the improbable Donald Trump, in the latest national poll — will want to take advantage of the opportunity and use the time to shake as many hands, kiss as many cheeks and say ‘Hi’ to as many people as he possibly can.

Among those people will be some of the colleagues Rubio served with when he was on the city commission from 1998 to 2000, including Peter Busse, Carlos Diaz-Padron, Velia Yedra and Enrique Gonzalez, who won the other open seat with Rubio in 1998.

Rubio was 26 and had just come off working on Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996. “I’m so glad I was able to connect with voters in a city I love so much, “ Rubio told a Miami Herald reporter then adding that his priorities would be “working on a program to improve community policing and on getting more grant money.”

He didn’t stay very long, though, running for a state House seat that became open in 2000. It was clear even then that Rubio had higher office in his future.

But that doesn’t matter to the people in this city. Because if Florida is Marco Rubio country, as his campaign signs say, then West Miami is Planet Marco.

Especially this Saturday morning.

Marco Rubio, Presidential race 2016, Rebeca Sosa

Marco Rubio comes home to low-key gig for neighbors, pals added by Ladra on December 4, 2015
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