Rubio's Problem

One of the least wacko (a very low bar) of the GOP's stable of rising stars is Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Because his parents were Cuban (I want to see his birth certificate! The long-form one!), the Republicans hope he will have creds with the Hispanic community and improve the GOP's dismal showing there.

David Axelrod, in an interview quoted at The Hill, points to one of the problems with that:

"I recently saw the Hispanic Republican senator, Marco Rubio, on television," Axelrod said in the interview, released Friday. "Earlier that day he had been one of the 20 to vote against the Violence Against Women Act in the Senate. It is hard for me to see how someone gets elected as the president of the United States making those votes, but also hard for me to see how someone wins the Republican nomination without making those votes."

In other words, if you're crazy enough to win the Republican nomination, you're too crazy to win the general election. That sounds right.

The Hill article goes on to quote Rubio's justification for voting against the Violence Against Women Act:

Rubio was one of 22 Republican senators that voted against the VAWA reauthorization in February. Rubio objected to the final bill because, he said, it "would mandate the diversion of a portion of funding from domestic violence programs to sexual assault programs, although there’s no evidence to suggest this shift will result in a greater number of convictions."

You think maybe he's trying to sound like he was for it, even though he voted against it? On the right-wing score cards he gets a plus for voting against it, but he can tell the ladies it was because of a technicality.