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We learn more about Florida’s Senator-elect. Steve Hayes spent time with Marco Rubio during Rubio’s campaign, and offers an impressive portrayal. The excerpts from a speech that Rubio gave are electrifying.
…If anything, Rubio is underrated. Some Democrats seem to understand this. That fact, probably more than anything else, explains why the White House encouraged Bill Clinton as early as last spring to use his influence to get Meek out of the race and clear the way for Charlie Crist to run as a Democrat.
No Republican in the country offers a more compelling defense of American exceptionalism and a more powerful indictment of the Obama administration than Marco Rubio. He has had lots of practice. He ran against Obama more than he ran against either of his two opponents. On the first full day I spent with him, Rubio never once mentioned Meek, and he spoke about Charlie Crist only when responding to a question—this in a day that included a lunchtime speech at a fundraiser with Mitt Romney, a lengthy debate prep session, and two additional speeches in Plant City that evening.
Rubio speaks extemporaneously and usually without notes. And while his remarks often cover the same broad set of issues and sometimes repeat phrases, no two speeches are ever the same. When Rubio addressed several hundred local Republicans in Plant City at the Red Rose Hotel, in a room just down from a cheesy lounge with fake stars on the ceiling, it was just another event. He had done thousands of similar events and given hundreds of similar speeches before this one. He spoke for nearly 40 minutes, and the audience listened intently to every word.
I do not believe you have to demonize people in order to win elections. Quite frankly, I think that many of these people in Washington who are making bad policy are generally well intentioned. But I think they have two things wrong: a fundamental misunderstanding of how our economy functions and a fundamental misunderstanding of America’s role in the world. And those two things are what led to these policies.
Number one—The economy functions like this: Jobs are not created by politicians, they are created by people that start businesses or expand existing businesses. And the job of government is to create the environment where doing that becomes easier, not harder. Number two—America’s role in the world is pretty straightforward. The world is safer and it is better when America is the strongest country in the world. …
Rubio’s background allows him to make these cutting arguments without any suggestion that Obama is somehow un-American. Many politicians understand American exceptionalism on an intellectual level, but Rubio feels it.
In most every other country in the world, if your parents were workers, you grew up to be a worker. If your parents were employees, you grew up to be an employee. But in this country, the worker can become an owner, the employee can become an employer. It happens every single day. And that is what sets us apart. .??.??. I am a generation removed from something very different from this. My parents weren’t born in a society like this. They were born in a place where what you were going to be when you grew up was decided for you. It all depended on who your parents were, who your grandparents were—how connected you were. .??.??. My dad was a bartender. I always look for the bar at these events. He stood behind that for 30-some-odd years, working events just like this. I often have told people that at events like this that my dad worked, there were two people standing behind tables, the bartender behind the bar and the speaker behind the podium. He literally worked 35 or 40 years—on New Year’s Eves and holidays and late nights, into his seventies—behind the bar, so that one day his children could sit at a table at one of these events. Or even better, stand behind a podium like this.
But I never remember feeling limited by any of that. Because this is a nation where anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything. I never remember feeling that because my last name ended with a vowel there was only so far I could go in life. This is an extraordinary country. And so on a personal level, what this race is about for me is whether my kids are going to get to raise their children in a country that looks like the one my parents were born in or in a country like the one that I was born in. It’s literally that stark of a choice. …
In the Washington Examiner, Michael Barone examines where Republicans won.
…But they made really sweeping gains in state legislatures, where candidate quality makes less difference. According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, Republicans gained about 125 seats in state Senates and 550 seats in state Houses — 675 seats in total. That gives them more seats than they’ve won in any year since 1928.
…All those gains are hugely significant in redistricting. When the 2010 Census results are announced next month, the 435 House seats will be reapportioned to the states, and state officials will draw new district lines in each state. A nonpartisan commission authorized by voters this year will do the job in (Democratic) California, but in most states it’s up to legislators and governors (although North Carolina’s governor cannot veto redistricting bills).
…This will make a difference not just in redistricting. State governments face budget crunches and are supposed to act to help roll out Obamacare. Republican legislatures can cut spending and block the rollout. “I won,” Barack Obama told Republican leaders seeking concessions last year. This year he didn’t.
Mark Greenbaum, in Salon.com, looks at redistricting and how this will likely strengthen Republican seats in Congress.
To everyone’s surprise, Nancy Pelosi wants to return as the Democrats’ leader in the next Congress. But if she’s hoping for a big Democratic year in 2012 that would give her the speaker’s gavel back, she might want to look closer at Tuesday’s results: Based on the breadth and scope of their losses, it is going be almost impossible for Democrats to retake the House in the next 10 years.
While Democrats’ historic loss of at least 61 seats (results are still pending in a handful of districts) can be traced to a diverse set of factors, the majority of the Democrats defeated were either elected to Republican-friendly seats in the wave elections of 2006 and 2008 or were long-term incumbents who represented heavily GOP districts. The seats in that latter category are likely gone for good, while many in the former are clustered in a handful of states where GOP state-level gains will ensure that they are fortified in next year’s redistricting trials, making them even more difficult for Democrats to take back than they were entering the ’06 and ’08 cycles.
…Looking at Tuesday’s results from another angle, around two-thirds of the seats Democrats lost were held by members elected in the ’06 and ’08 elections. With a small handful of exceptions, nearly all of these districts are Republican-leaning, though most not overwhelmingly so. They represented the spoils of Democrats’ own wave elections. As currently drawn, many of them could theoretically be competitive in 2012, but Republican state legislative and gubernatorial gains could help the GOP use the forthcoming redistricting to fortify many of them. …