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It could’ve, would’ve, should’ve been a proud moment for all Cuban-Americans to see a Miami son make a bid for the U.S. presidency.
After all, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio certainly pulled at the heart strings using the historic Freedom Tower where Cuban refugees were processed during the Freedom Flights as the backdrop to his prime news hour announcement Monday night.
But in his ambitious quest to win Anglo conservative voters in Middle America, Rubio chose — and charted again in his presidential campaign speech — a political path that put him at odds with the uniqueness and progressiveness of contemporary South Florida.
It’s not that he’s a Republican, it’s that Rubio is an ultra conservative Republican who rose to power by embracing tea party right-wing ideology with evangelic eagerness. As we say in English and Spanish, he’s become more papist than the pope. Only his Texan counterpart and rival for the GOP nomination, Sen. Ted Cruz, is more extremist in his views. They’re both bad choices for the Republican Party if winning the presidency in a demographically changing country is what they seek.
A climate-change denier, this would-be world leader didn’t even mention one of the most important issues facing communities across the globe — and drowning his own. But he didn’t hesitate to bring up the paternalist issue that for scores of women disqualifies him from being a good candidate for any office, much less the presidency: women’s rights to make decisions about their reproductive health.
We didn’t wage battles against sexism throughout our lives to endorse Republican troglodytes like Rubio who won’t leave alone the historic Roe vs. Wade decision, and will, if elected president, get to appoint like-minded federal judges.
Rubio claims that he’s the youthful alternative and that in the case of other candidates, “too many of their ideas are stuck in the 20th century,” but he’s the one clinging to the past.
To read full article: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article18530468.html
