This week, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio tours his home state of Florida as part of a “two-step plan” to improve his image, which has “taken a beating” recently, reports Alex Leary in the Tampa Bay Times.
Rubio’s statewide visit has two distinct agendas: a public one, to decry the dangers he sees in ObamaCare to friends and pro-business advocates; and a series of more private, invitation-only events, to shore up support from conservatives angered by his collaboration with Democrats on immigration reform.
The bigger plan is to repair Rubio’s tarnished image as a GOP rising star, which has dimmed his hopes (slightly) for the shot for the Republican 2016 presidential nomination.
Immigration has been the hot topic of Rubio’s Florida political tour, which included a speech to the Jacksonville Rotary Club on Monday. However, the Jacksonville speech focused mainly on tax reform and ObamaCare—two subjects highly disliked by Republicans. Only about 90 seconds went to immigration.
It wasn’t until Rubio showed up Tuesday on the WFLA Preston Scott morning radio show in Tallahassee that he got to the heart of conservative’s beef with him. In the interview, Rubio said the immigration system was broken, but then added another fear about Obama.
According to Rubio, if Congress does not act on immigration reform quickly, Obama will be “tempted” to use executive action to legalize millions of workers illegally in the U.S., just as he did with “DREAMers” — children of undocumented residents.
“We can’t leave it, in my mind, the way it is,” Rubio told Scott. “Because I think a year from now we could find ourselves with all 11 million people here legally under executive order from the president.”
“No E-Verify, no more border security, no more border agents, none of the other reforms that we desperately need,” he added.
Six weeks ago, Rubio contacted Tampa-based Tea Party activist Tim Curtis for a meeting. The leader of the group Tampa 9.12. hopes this time Rubio will follow through.
“He failed to do that,” Curtis told the Times. “That’s not a good thing, because I’ve got a big mouth.”
