In 2000 Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman ran simultaneously for Vice President and for his Senate seat. It sent a couple of bad messages, first that he didn't have faith in the Gore-Lieberman ticket winning and, second, that his decisions revolved around one thing: about Joe Lieberman. I kind of admired Florida Senator Marco Rubio for deciding to not for his Senate seat and just run for president-- unlike Rand Paul, whose term is also expiring but who has chosen to-- at least for now-- run for both seats simultaneously. The other senators running-- Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders and Lindsey Graham-- aren't up for reelection so they didn't need to make the choice. But now that modicum of admiration I left for the otherwise fairly contemptible Rubio has turned to disdain.Rubio, it turns out, doesn't even bother to do his Senate job. He's missed over 40% of the Senate votes this year and only seems to bother to go in when there's an opportunity to grandstand and use the Senate as a backdrop for his struggling presidential campaign. Rand Paul isn't missing votes. Bernie Sanders isn't missing votes. Even Ted Cruz isn't missing nearly as many votes as Rubio. He's on 4 committees, which is where most Senate work gets done-- Commerce, Science and Transportation; Foreign Relations; Intelligence and Small Business and Entrepreneurship-- and 8 subcommittees (two of which he supposedly chairs, the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard and the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues.) He hasn't been going to any of them. Since Rubio became subcommittee chair of Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard in January, he's only called 2 meetings (April 28 and May 20) and the other members are hopping mad. One told me that it's a bipartisan, good-government committee that has really important, non-political work and that Rubio is "reprehensible" for being disinterested in the issues and what the committee can accomplish for the country and for being being AWOL. The senators with pressing issues have managed to work around him by going the Commerce Committee chair John Thune who is willing to work in a bipartisan way ("as long as you don't call it climate change").And now, turns out, Rubio has ZERO patience for the deliberative pace at which the Senate moves. As Speaker of the Florida legislature he was often hopped up on drugs-- and the party house he shared with hatchet man and serial criminal David Rivera in Tallahassee was free-flowing with coke, hookers and lobbyists-- and he kept a stream of badly conceived legislation flowing rapidly, part of the reason Florida is such a mess today.Rubio makes $174,000 a year, plus very generous and costly perks. He hates his job and he isn't doing it. He should resign and stop making believe he's a senator. He excuses being MIA from the Senate with an ugly, completely selfish and ego-centric logic: "That’s why I’m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate. I am not running for reelection."Miami car dealer Norman Braman has financed Rubio's political career and aside from he and his relatives maxing out to Rubio he contributed $2,000,000 to Rubio's SuperPAC on June 22, $1,500,000 to the same shady PAC and May 17, $1,500,000 to the SuperPAC April 17-- $5 million so far this year... and the campaign is just getting started. He's been one of the sources telling anyone who asks that Rubio hates the Senate.
On the campaign trail, Rubio comes under attack from rivals who say he’s become an absentee federal employee. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, in a less-than-subtle knock on his former homestate ally, has said senators who miss work should have their pay docked.“It’s just, kind of, like, dude, you know, either drop out or do something,” Bush’s son, Jeb Bush Jr., told New York University College Republicans earlier this month, in comments first reported by Politico Florida. The junior Bush, a Floridian, cast himself as an aggrieved constituent. “We’re paying you to do something, it ain’t run for president.”Rubio waves off the criticism, saying his rejection of the Senate is all about finding a better way to serve all Americans.“I’m not missing votes because I’m on vacation,” he told CNN on Sunday. “I’m running for president so that the votes they take in the Senate are actually meaningful again.”Asked about his absences recently by Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show Rubio said: “My ambitions aren’t for me. My ambitions are for the country, and Florida.” If he is elected to the White House, he added, “we can begin to fix some of these issues that I’ve been so frustrated we’ve been unable to address during my time in the Senate.”
Mark of a true sociopath. Rubio's a quitter who's snorted too much cocaine in his 44 years. No wonder not one of his Senate colleagues has endorsed him. [Jeb has been endorsed by Orrin Hatch (UT), Dean Heller (NV) and Susan Collins (ME). Lindsey Graham, of course, by McCain. Huckabee snagged the endorsements of John Boozman (AR) and Mike Rounds (SD). Mitch McConnell endorsed Rand Paul.]By the way... the perfect replacement, someone who makes a point of being there to vote-- and to vote in the interests of his constituents-- Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson. You can help him here.UPDATE: No One Got Their Pay DockedToday there were a series of 7 extremely important votes on cybersecurity (S. 754) in the Senate, a domestic spying bill that already passed the House in April. It passed the House 307-116, opposed by 37 anti-domestic spying Republicans (like Justin Amash and Walter Jones) and 79 anti-domestic spying Democrats (like Alan Grayson, Ted Lieu, Barbara Lee, Jerry Nadler, Mark Pocan, Donna Edwards, Xavier Becerra, Mike Honda, Matt Cartwright...) The Senate bill-- which was opposed by tech companies-- and which tramples privacy came out of the Intelligence Committee, on which Rubio serves. The 5 amendments that tried to salvage some degree of privacy all failed. The Senate bill co-sponsored by pro-domestic spying senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Richard Burr (R-NC), passed 74-21. Although Bernie Sanders (I-VT) made it his business to be in DC to oppose the bill, Republican candidates Ted Cruz (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Rand Paul (R-KY) and, of course, Rubio. (David Vitter, desperate to salvage his disintegrating gubernatorial campaign, also missed the vote.) Of the no-shows, only Rubio is an Intelligence Committee member.
