You hear a lot of talk about voters preferring the presidential candidate with whom they’d like to have a beer. But this is much, much different, people. This is bad.
Manuel Roig-Franzia and Scott Higham, WaPo:
MIAMI — Marco Rubio’s first year of college at a small school in Missouri ended badly. His grades were awful. A neck injury dashed any hopes of achieving greatness on the football field. He was hurting for money.
He resolved to go back to Florida and get his life on a path to success. Instead the 18-year-old added to his troubles after returning to Miami for summer break: He was arrested one night in May 1990 for being in a crime-plagued public park after closing time, according to police records and an interview with a friend who was cited with Rubio that night…
Todd Harris, presidential campaign strategist for the senator from Florida, dismissed the episode as a minor infraction with no relevance today.
“When he was 18 years old, he violated a municipal code for drinking beer in a park after hours,” Harris said. “He was never taken into custody, never hired a lawyer and never appeared in court. Why The Washington Post thinks that is a story is beyond me.”
Well, that’s easy. WaPo thinks it’s a story because Marco Rubio is a Republican. That’s why his “luxury” fishing boat is a story, and his credit-card debt is a story, and his choice of footwear is a story, and pretty much anything else he’s ever done in his life that can be put in a negative light is a story. That’s how it works.
Hillary Clinton endangering national security because she’s a corrupt, paranoid, lawless control freak? Well, y’know, these things happen. Marco Rubio drinking beer in a park when he was in college? Daaaaaaaaamn.
Hey, at least it wasn’t water. Remember that? When he drank water?
I know a lot of people don’t like Rubio because of the amnesty stuff, but he’s a hell of a lot better than Trump. At least Rubio has principles beyond, “Here I am, folks!” (Megadittoes, National Review.) And if this is what the mighty Washington Post has been reduced to — a scoop that makes the “Romney once gave a kid a haircut” story look like Watergate — it just makes me like Rubio all the more.
Just imagine the debate stage: A young, optimistic, charismatic Cuban-American guy vs. whichever of those two grouchy white senior citizens survives the winter.
Hey, I can dream, can’t I?