If Marco Rubio runs for re-election, he's got to get past 'Mini-Trump.' Will he try?
Reluctant senator and strikingly ineffective presidential candidate Marco Rubio still has a decision to make. He can hold true to his previous word and not run for re-election because, well, he's vowed up and down that he wouldn't do that—or he can break that previous vow and mount a frantic last-minute bid to keep his day job.
Since nobody truly expects a conservative politician to keep a consistent position, most Marco Rubio fans have been presuming he would flip-flop himself into mounting a re-election bid. Competing Republicans like David Jolly and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera have either stepped out of the way or assured Rubio they would. So why's it taking so long for Rubio to decide?
“Rubio is going to have some challenges to overcome. Carlos Beruff, who is a Trump knock-off, is one of them," Mac Stipanovich, a Florida-based Republican strategist told TPM. "Marco will be facing a Mini-me of the guy he lost to badly not too long ago."
You might know Beruff as the Republican candidate who referred to the current American president as an "animal." Calling him a Mini-Trump is perhaps understating the case. The wealthy blowhard Beruff has no intention of stepping aside for the faux-moderate Rubio, not when what America really needs in the Senate is another rich, xenophobic Loud Guy.