Back in September, I made the prediction that, when voters lose their infatuation with Trump, and with Carson, it’d be Rubio left standing. Little did I imagine that it’d be Cruz climbing in the polls, and Rubio stagnating, but, if you look at RCP’s latest polling averages, Rubio peaked on December 8th with 15%, and has dropped since then, to 11%. And Cruz (Cruz! “abolish the fed” Cruz!) was tied with Rubio then, and has been growing his lead since then, to 19%. In Iowa, he’s tied with Trump, after having briefly been leading. In New Hampshire, he’s still right there in the pack with the others, but, well, that’s New Hampshire. They were the ones that gave McCain his boost, and they’ve got Kasich polling well.
So what happened to Rubio?
Perhaps many things happened to him, but, as far as I’m concerned, I find it disturbing that he can’t tell a straight story on immigration. Consider just the last couple days:
On Thursday, in the debate, he’s got a new claim, that his opinion on legalization changed because of national security fears, and the need to vet immigrants properly. It was horrifying to watch as it took a question about increases in green cards and just inserted “Syria! Terrorism!” as if the two had anything to do with each other. It felt as if he was grasping at straws.
There were also scuffles with Cruz about immigration, and as a result, he released an ad, as reported at hotair.com, in which he pledged “no amnesty.”
But on Sunday, on Meet the Press, as reported by Politico, the Daily Caller, etc. he asserted that he still intends to allow illegal immigrants to stay, so long as they haven’t committed non-immigration-related felonies (that is, identity theft is OK). Mikey Kaus is predictably unwilling to give him a pass, and, let’s face it, as much as Rubio is trying to convince voters that Cruz’s record is no better than his, I have to suspect that a large part of the reason why voters aren’t warming to him is that they think he’s just peddling snake oil here, and it impacts their entire opinion of him as a candidate.
After all, to say “no amnesty” and “yes, legalization” only makes sense if you adopt that legalese that says “I define amnesty as a completely free pass for everyone, so if I attach any conditions (no matter how small) to my proposal, I deem it non-amensty.” And this sort of weaseling around the issue hardly endears one to voters.
Rubio’s had a long time to evaluate the issue, and come up with a credible explanation for his “conversion” away from legalization. It wouldn’t have been that hard. Just say, “because of my immigrant background, I had a hard time believing that immigration could ever be anything but positive, but now I understand that it helps the wealthy but hurts the poor.” I even wrote up the text for him, back in November. But not only did he not take my advice (shocking, I know!), he’s offered a series of weak explanations since then, largely centered around the fact that he now knows we have to implement enforcement first, because that’s the only thing that’ll work politically — which is not a particularly principled statement, and suggests that, if Congress sent a bill to his desk with a legalization program, he’d say, “hey, I was wrong; it is politically possible to have legalization first,” and get out his pen.
(It reminds me of HRC’s position on single-payer healthcare at yesterday’s debate: “I oppose single-payer just because it’s not possible to get the votes for it.”)
What’s more, the key type of enforecment we need is not a wall to keep illegal immigrants out, or better visa-tracking to count the number of visa overstayers, but work enforcement — e-verify. And if he’s planning on letting pretty much everyone stay, then he simply can’t go along with a mandatory e-verify program without some kind of prior legalization, whether it’s called such, or given the label of “temporary,” because otherwise legalization-eligible individuals will be unable to work.
And the exact particulars of his plans — especially at what point he plans to implement legalization — have left immigration activists constantly parsing he words, because he just doesn’t provide specifics.
I’ll offer again my no-fail illegal immigration solution from November (bottom line: give workers standing to sue), but I suspect it’s too late for Rubio. After all, if voters don’t trust him on immigration, then they just don’t trust him. And if he’s not smart enough to give a satistfactory, believable answer on the topic, he’s just not smart enough, period.
ADDED:
Yes, I know other candidates are either pro-amnesty (Bush) or are furiously denying their prior support (Cruz, reportedly). But what gets me about Rubio is how incompetently he’s managing his flip-flop.
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