Politics

Mark Halperin: ‘Marco Rubio Is Now A First-Tier Candidate’ [VIDEO]

Alex Griswold Media Reporter
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The hosts of Bloomberg TV’s “With All Due Respect” gave glowing reviews to Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign rollout, with Mark Halperin saying Rubio was now a “first-tier candidate” and could end up the Republican nominee. (VIDEO: Rubio: Obama Foreign Policy ‘A History Of Miscalculation And Misjudgment’)

HOST JOHN HEILEMANN: Six months ago, the conventional wisdom was that Marco Rubio would never consider running for president if his friend and semi-mentor Jeb Bush was in. But that seemed to have turned out to be conventional wis-dumb. In forty-five minutes, Rubio’s going to make his formal entrance into the race.

We just got the excerpts from his planned remarks, in which he says we cannot go ‘back to the leaders of the past. We have to change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them.’ Mark, my question to you… will he be a first tier candidate? Or is he a second-tier candidate?

HALPERIN: These excerpts are excellent; they are very well-written and I bet he will deliver them powerfully. Unless you are someone who believes that Jeb Bush is alone in the first-tier candidate, the nominee presumptive, Marco Rubio is now a first-tier candidate. Scott Walker, he’s a first-tier candidate. Jeb Bush is a first-tier candidate. I think that’s probably it at this point.

He has catapulted himself through great performances at these multi-candidate events, particularly ones for donors that are not open to the press and the public, and by being a new face. And his emphasis on middle class economics is really strong for a lot of people in the party

He still has room to grow as a candidate. He’s still not particularly well-known. He has still not tried out his talents on the kind of audiences that you do in a presidential campaign. He may end up being a great Iowa candidate. Somebody whose judgment I trust told me last week that he felt that after Rubio spent time in Iowa, he would become the front-runner.

Now, that may be so, but today’s our polling and other polling does not represent that. He’s got a long way to go, but he does have the capacity to be the last man standing if Bush and Walker and others are found wanting.

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