1,360 days to go--liberals already after Rubio

From liberal Stephanie Condon of CBS News:

“delivering the minority party's response to the president's State of the Union address [can] be a perilous moment, leaving one open to criticism. Rubio smiled throughout his address, but in one uncomfortable moment, he stooped down off camera to grab a plastic bottle of water.”

Liberal “how it’s done” maven Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wrote:

“[Rubio] looked as if he needed some saving . . . Tuesday night as he delivered the party’s response to the State of the Union address in English (and Spanish). He seemed parched, shaky and sweaty, rubbing his face and at one point lunging off-camera to grab a bottle of water. He needed some . . . swagger.”

Responding to the obvious, Rubio himself tweeted a photo of the water bottle. He later told “Good Morning America” host and Clinton administration veteran George Stephanopoulos, “I needed water, what am I going to do? God has a funny way of reminding us we’re human.”

And it's “human” for liberals to make Rubio’s speech all about his gulp of water. Gotcha!

More seriously, liberal former TIME White House correspondent Karen Tumulty, 58 and now with the Washington Post, wrote (with Manuel Roig-Franzia):

“the spotlight that has fallen on this relatively new arrival to the national scene says as much about the state of the Republican Party as it does about the 41-year-old senator. And it remains to be seen whether he represents the solution to the GOP’s problems, or whether the party’s sky-high hopes in an untested newcomer are just another measure of its drift.”

“state of Republican Party. . . GOP’s problems. . . measure of its drift,” “relatively new,” “untested newcomer.” That's a lot of loaded language sent Rubio’s way in just two sentences--and so early in the 2016 campaign! I believe that if we could crawl inside Tumulty’s head, we’d hear, “Of course Hillary should be our next president, Rubio is the major obstacle in her path, and we must do everything to knock this Obama-lite phony ethnic out of her way!”

Finally this piece, “Marco Rubio Can’t Save GOP,” from progressive Jamelle Bouie, American Prospect staff writer and frequent Washington Post contributor:

"Latino voters are more liberal than their white counterparts. . . the Pew Research Hispanic Center [reports] 75% of Hispanics say they support bigger government with more services, compared with 41% of the general population. 51% say abortion should be legal, and 59% say 'homosexuality should be accepted by society.' Compare this to the actual rhetoric of Rubio. . .Latinos might be proud of having their own in the Senate, but pan-ethnic pride isn’t a substitute for substantive representation."

I decided to go to the Pew Research Hispanic Center for their poll’s actual findings on Hispanics. Here’s what I learned:

1. “Latino voters are more liberal”

While Latino voters are 30% liberal, more (32%) are conservative, not too far from the general population, which is 34% conservative, 21% liberal.

2. “75% of Hispanics say they support bigger government with more services, compared with 41% of the general population.”

True, but misleading. The question posed a choice between those who want smaller government with fewer services, or bigger government with more services. Latinos, still more concentrated toward the lower end of the economic scale, responded as would any group so positioned, favoring more government services over less by 75% to 19%, while the ratio of a general population less reliant on government was 41% for bigger to 48% for smaller government.

3. “51% say abortion should be legal”

Should you trust anything Bouie writes? Actually, 51% of Hispanics said abortion should be illegal, not legal, as against only 43% who want it legal. Contrast that to the “less liberal” general population, which favors legal abortion by 54% to 41%. Such an error betrays Bouie’s overriding desire to fit statistics to his own (inaccurate) world view.

4. “59% say ‘homosexuality should be accepted by society.’”

True, but the Hispanic answer hardly makes Latinos more liberal, since general population acceptance of homosexuality is a nearly identical 58%.

Long before even the 2014 mid-term elections, it’s surprising liberals are so driven to reassure themselves Rubio isn’t what they fear: a full-on threat to their hanging onto the White House after 2016.

Rubio has plenty of time to bring his water supply closer; liberals fortunately have time to start getting their facts straight.