Tea'd Off At Sen. Rubio

The Tea Party is turning their ire on GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, saying he hasn't done enough to stop illegal immigrants from entering Florida, and they want to know why the Latino senator has not cracked down on the Latino community.

“We’ve been waiting for him to come up with something and to be a leader on this issue,” said Danita Kilcullen, founder of Tea Party Fort Lauderdale.

When President Barack Obama traveled to Texas recently to call for a renewed immigration debate, Rubio said the borders need to be secured before anything. He demanded action on an employment background check system called E-Verify.

But Rubio has not made an effort to sponsor immigration legislation or even highlight the issue — it is not listed on his website, tea party members note. And he remained on the sidelines as E-Verify was narrowly defeated this month in the Florida Legislature, where Rubio is held in almost holy regard.

Jobs, the national debt and Medicare are dominant themes on Capitol Hill now, not immigration. Still, the flicker of activity, including a U.S. Supreme Court decision Thursday upholding part of Arizona’s controversial new law, exposes the pressure and pitfalls facing Rubio.

He is being torn in opposite directions by his base: Washington’s Republican elite and Florida’s grass-roots activists who propelled him into office.

The establishment is eagerly positioning the charismatic 40-year-old son of Cuban exiles as the Hispanic face of the party. The Latino population in the United States has grown 43 times faster than the non-Hispanic white population, rising from 35.3 million in 2000 to 50.5 million in 2010.

Last week, former Republican Party of Florida chairman Al Cardenas, now head of the American Conservative Union, boasted in Politico that Rubio’s inclusion on a presidential ticket would “almost guarantee” a GOP victory.

The safe route, then, is to avoid being drawn into a serious immigration debate. “If anything, they’re saying [to Rubio] ‘Let’s not talk about this,’ ” said Patrick Davis, a national Republican consultant. “It motivates Hispanics to look at Democrats and Obama.” 

Rubio is not a stupid man, but he's in an untenable situation.  The millisecond he comes out for the GOP's crackdown on anyone who might speak a second language, his political career is over.  The problem is, if he doesn't, his political career is over (it just may take longer).

He's opting for choice number two right now, but that will only buy him so much time.  Maybe he's hoping he can duck the issue long enough to get a 2012 veep bid.  He won't make it to 2016, however.  He'll have to take a tough stand on immigration or be pegged as a RINO and thrown out of the party in the next few years.  Look at Scott Brown's precipitous fall and the all but assured primary of the Ladies From Maine as well as Dick Lugar scrambling to the right.  I foresee none of these Senators in Congress in 2016.

Marco Rubio appears to be next on the RINO list.