Off The Mat: Marco Rubio's Turn In The Spotlight

I can't say I think much of Marco Rubio - not being personal, but this "savior" stuff seems a little premature - but the following from his SOTU rebuttal is worth a highlight

But his favorite attack of all is that those who don’t agree with him – they only care about rich people. 

Mr. President, I still live in the same working class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren’t millionaires. They’re retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They’re workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They’re immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy. 

The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle class families. It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs. 

And it will hurt seniors because it does nothing to save Medicare and Social Security.
So Mr. President, I don’t oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors.

It's one of the great ironies of of modern politics that the "party of the rich" is filled with politicians who come from modest backgrounds. Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, John Boehner, Ronald Reagan, Dennis Hastert, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, the dread Karl Rove, and on and on all came from marginal or modest families. It's Democrat (and "moderate" Republican) politicians who are much more like to come from wealth, often ludicrous wealth. 

Of course, the news media that never stopped talking about Mitt Romney's car elevator also plays along with the fiction that billionaires like John Kerry - who, btw, appears to have had plastic surgery - is a reg'lar guy, the same sort of fiction that props up the careers of so many left-liberals. But, what's stopping Republicans from pointing out this reality? Got me, but I'm glad Rubio took his moment in the spotlight - it's a rare moment indeed when a conservative can speak unimpeded or unedited - to make this basic point.