Monday, February 22, 2016

Florida is NOT Marco Rubio country ... by gimleteye

"The long unraveling of the Jeb Bush's presidential campaign" in the Miami Herald doesn't poll Bush's campaign contributors who shelled out $5000 per vote in New Hampshire or more than $150 million in the PAC supporting him. Down the drain.

Usually the national leadership of a damaged political brand would be engaged in exorcising its demons. Republicans are anointing them. The Miami Herald concludes its tepid report, giving GOP Congressman Carlos Curbelo the last word, "It just wasn't Jeb's year." Please. The mass of anger from the Republican base is as if to say, "we Republican voters are not buying what you (the GOP) are selling".

Now, Marco Rubio. Eye On Miami has written lots on Rubio. Interested readers can use the search feature on the blog to look back.

In 1999, I saw Rubio at Versailles at a long table of young Republican state legislators. Gaston Cantens, now chief lobbyist for the Fanjul cartel (Big Sugar), organized the luncheon. I remember my impression: telegenic, cookie-cutter good looks, bright-eyed and ambitious. They all looked like Alex Penelas, the Democratic mayor of Miami-Dade County who I was battling on the Homestead Air Force Base. Penelas was determined to hand-over the air base -- with a 99 year no-bid lease -- a corporate entity reconstituted from the board of the Latin Builders Association.

The reason I recall the luncheon clearly: it would not be long before I was engaged in another fierce battle: by Jeb Bush on behalf of Big Sugar to lower pollution standards in the Everglades. In 2003 Big Sugar would enlist Cantens and Rubio to marshall legislative support for a new law that violated what Jeb Bush had promised to protect in 2001: Everglades restoration. (That resulted in fifteen years of federal litigation won by the small grass roots group I represent, Friends of the Everglades, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians.)

In the early 2000's, Big Sugar identified Marco Rubio as someone the cartel could trust.

For Rubio and many of his supporters, the purpose of government is not to protect the health and welfare of taxpayers, it is to find work-arounds for lawyers. When Marco left the state legislature, he went to work as a lawyer/lobbyist predictably in land use zoning and lobbying for Jackson Hospital. From there, he was tapped to run for the US Senate against Charlie Crist, a candidate who had infuriated the Fanjul cartel by offering that the state should buy 187,000 acres of US Sugar Corporation land in the Everglades Agricultural Area.

Today, Republican taxpayers and property owners on both Florida coasts have been energized to activism because of rampant pollution spewing from Lake Okeechobee; a disaster that can be tied directly to terrible legislative decisions on behalf of Big Sugar and supported by Marco Rubio in his rise to power.

I was among those who wrongly believed -- like many of Jeb Bush's core supporters -- that Marco lacked gravitas, standing, and the capacity to leap ahead of Bush in the pecking order carefully arranged by GOP monied interests and standard bearers. Now that he has, the nation will soon discover,  Florida is NOT Marco Rubio country.
First to greet Marco Rubio from the stage where he announced his presidential nomination bid in downtown Miami: one of the heads of the Big Sugar cartel,  Pepe Fanjul

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maureen Dowd in NY Times, right on: The country is now aflame with anger and disgust about politicians and bankers who conned trusting Americans and never got punished for it. That fury has led to the rise of wildly improbable candidates in both parties. As the Bush dynasty falls, it must watch in horror knowing that it is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.

Anonymous said...

Yep.

Anonymous said...

The overriding talking point for the left is they think they can beat Trump.

Anonymous said...

We are not forgetting the Senate.

Geniusofdespair said...

I blame Trump's popularity on the Supreme Court decisionCitizens United. People are not aware that the gobs of money from special interests thrown at candidates is from that decision. They just know instinctively, they don't like those gobs of money.

alfallah12345 said...

they think they can beat Trump.

Anonymous said...

Oh lawd - more big sugar garbage

Unknown said...

republicans=$$$ amazed when jeb dropped out, must be bush country is out...florida has been ravaged, raped and ruined by big business and those who come down and use her beauty and bounty, then throw it away, and trot back home, never looking back..................

Anonymous said...

Rubio is owned and operated by Big Sugar. The only good thing about his presidential run is that it gets him out of the senate. The bad news is - his election to the presidency would be the death knell for The Treasure Coast and probably the rest of Florida. It would be the presidency of the Fanjuls and US Sugar.