For a man in a hurry, Marco Rubio is running a remarkably patient presidential campaign.
The 44 year-old contender has advanced rapid-fire during two decades in politics, from city councilman, to Florida House speaker to U.S. senator. Along the way, Rubio has ignored calls from Republican elders to wait his turn in favor of more seasoned candidates. But his 2016 campaign is the product of a deliberate strategy formulated two years ago. What’s more remarkable, Rubio has assiduously stuck with the plan throughout an unpredictable and volatile nomination fight.
“We want to be first in February,” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told the Washington Examiner on Monday. “We are ignoring the early polls and staying focused on talking about Marco’s policy ideas.”
Rubio isn’t wearing blinders, and tactical adjustments are not beyond him.
His rise in the polls after the first two televised debates, which came after a summer swoon that saw his numbers hit the low single digits, have garnered the attention of, and attacks from, front-runner Donald Trump. The New York businessman/entertainer has called Rubio a clown, sweaty, weak on illegal immigration and a truant for missing Senate votes to campaign. Rubio, who had a strict policy of avoiding daily food fights, immediately hit back — and hard.
Conant declined to elaborate on the campaign’s strategy for dealing with Trump, who still leads the pack in most state and local polls, or even discuss whether such a strategy exists. But sources following Team Rubio said they don’t expect attacks from Trump, or anyone else, to go unanswered. Punching bags look the opposite of presidential, particularly in a campaign in which GOP primary voters value “fighters.”
But Rubio hopes to distinguish himself in the Trump wars that have ensnared some Republicans by punching and pivoting — strike clean, precision blows and then immediately pivot back to his agenda and his view of what the race should be about. “He doesn’t play Trump’s game the way many of the candidates have,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican media consultant from Florida who has been critical of Trump and his supporters.
Rubio supporters point to remarks the senator made during an interview on NPR for clues as to how he plans to handle the billionaire real estate mogul:
“He is a very sensitive person, he doesn’t like to be criticized; he responds to criticism very poorly. He had a speech in South Carolina to an empty crowd; he got booed on Friday at that Value Voters summit, his poll numbers have taken a beating and he was embarrassed on national television in a debate by Carly Fiorina and others. But this election’s not about Donald Trump. He thinks it is, but it has to be about the issues confronting our country.”
Rubio came to Washington a Tea Party hero, after running for Senate over the objections of Republican insiders and ignoring the long odds for success.
He defeated then-Gov. Charlie Crist in a campaign that saw Crist bolt the GOP and run as an independent after it became clear he could not defeat Rubio in the primary. Crist is now a Democrat. Two years later, Rubio acted as lead negotiator of a bipartisan immigration reform bill, catching the attention of the governing wing of the party. Rubio eventually disavowed the bill under pressure from conservatives, but his bona fides on all sides remained relatively intact.
These twin experiences make it hard to pigeonhole Rubio in the crowded presidential field. He’s not quite a conservative insurgent in the style of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, another top 2016 contender, but hardly the establishment figure that is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. And that’s just fine with Rubio and his team. Their plan is to rise as others fall, and become the unifying candidate who maximizes votes from all quarters of the Republican electorate.
That fits with what Rubio advisers told the Examiner in early May of 2014, when they said the goal was to be the first choice of “many” and the second choice of “even more.” “We have gone to great lengths over the past couple of years to avoid at all costs becoming the flavor of the month,” senior Rubio adviser Todd Harris said then. “We thought that it was important to take the long view.”
Being able to resist getting blown off track is difficult.
Running for president involves day after day of talking to people, donors, activists, voters and would-be political experts. They tend to be reactive to the latest poll or the latest sound bite or attack delivered by a competitor. Operatives who are veterans of the presidential campaign process say it takes an extraordinarily disciplined and confident candidate to maintain their faith in their message and adhere to their strategic plan.
Rubio’s profile and poll position have risen after two winning debate performances.
That’s not necessarily surprising given the Floridian’s charisma and command of the issues. He is running as a generational change candidate, focusing on issues like the paid family leave plan — an unusual priority for a Republican — that he unveiled last week. But the senator’s longtime supporters are impressed in particular with his discipline and patience in an unusual primary campaign that has thus far favored political outsiders who have never held elected office.
They are optimistic that the approach will carry Rubio to victory once the voting starts in Iowa on Feb. 1.
“Marco was anti-establishment before-anti establishment was cool. Just because he has a title today doesn’t change that,” said one GOP operative backing Rubio’s presidential bid. “Challenging the status quo is in his DNA. If it wasn’t he wouldn’t be where he is today.”
