Rubio's Team Plots Path to Nomination: Third in Iowa, Second in N.H., First in S.C.

Ottumwa, Iowa -- After facing questions for months over his passive campaign approach and his unwillingness to identify one of the early nominating states as a launching pad, Marco Rubio and his senior aides have begun sharing a specific blueprint for how he can secure the Republican presidential nomination.

According to multiple Rubio allies recently briefed on campaign strategy, the senator's team has settled on an unconventional path to winning the GOP primary contest. The strategy, dubbed "3-2-1" by some who have been briefed on it, forecasts a sequence in which Rubio takes third place in Iowa on February 1, finishes second in New Hampshire on February 9, and wins South Carolina on February 20. From there, Rubio would be well-positioned in the long haul to win a plurality of voters, and ultimately a majority of delegates, in a three-way contest against Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

This planning represents a concession from Rubio's brain trust that Cruz and Trump will take the top two spots in Iowa -- most likely in that order -- and that Trump will win New Hampshire.

More boldly, it assumes that a Rubio victory will be possible in South Carolina even if he doesn't win either of the first two states. This would not be unprecedented; Newt Gingrich in 2012 won South Carolina after finishing fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire. But many GOP officials and rival campaign representatives believe that Cruz and Trump victories in the first two contests would generate a head-to-head battle for the nomination, depriving their also-ran opponents of political oxygen heading into South Carolina.

Rubio's team is preparing for a different scenario. The senator's operation -- both campaign and super PAC -- is anchored by South Carolina veterans who long ago identified their state as his firewall because of their institutional and organizational advantages, and because they viewed it as the best fit for someone without a geographic or ideological foothold in either Iowa or New Hampshire. Rubio's supporters remain confident in their ability, even without a victory in the first two states, to deliver South Carolina. But to do so they must winnow the field.

The way Rubio wins South Carolina, the thinking goes, is if he clears the establishment lane of competitors -- Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush -- so that center-right Republicans can consolidate behind him to defeat Trump and Cruz. But his team acknowledges that in order for that to happen, Rubio must finish ahead of Christie, Kasich, and Bush in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and by margins wide enough to discourage the continuation of their campaigns.

This explains why Rubio, in a campaign stop Monday here in this small, working-class town on the Des Moines River, continued his assault on Christie. Choosing to not mention him by name, Rubio sustained a series of attacks on the New Jersey governor -- after pummeling him during last week's debate in Charleston -- highlighting how "some candidates" would not offer a meaningful change from the policies of President Obama.

"We can't just elect any Republican," Rubio told the crowd here. "Our nominee can't be someone that agrees with Barack Obama on key issues like Common Core, or judges like [Supreme Court justice Sonia] Sotomayor, or gun control, or any of these other things." It was the second time during this stop that Rubio had emphasized those three subjects after cudgeling Christie with them a few nights earlier, much to the governor's irritation.

In recent weeks, Rubio's team has come to view Christie as its greatest threat, convinced that while Christie lacks the long-term resources to win the nomination, he has the ability to finish ahead of Rubio in New Hampshire -- which would give neither of them a legitimate claim as the establishment alternative to Trump and Cruz heading into South Carolina.

The scenario Rubio's team envisions is at once plausible and pocked with complications. He consistently polls third in Iowa's most recent surveys, and Republicans believe he has slowly edged out his establishment competitors here. New Hampshire is more problematic: Rubio ranks second in the RealClearPolitics polling average, but since the beginning of December he has been tightly bunched together with Christie, Kasich, and Bush. Cruz is essentially neck-and-neck with those four; a second-place finish could render the establishment battle irrelevant.

Even if Rubio breaks away from the pack in Iowa and New Hampshire, there is hardly a guarantee of success in South Carolina.

For one thing, Bush allies say their candidate has the resources, organization, and support there to stay in the race regardless of what occurs in the two earlier contests. (And they say he'll be further emboldened to stay through South Carolina after Lindsey Graham's endorsement.) Moreover, even if Rubio squeezes out his establishment rivals and secures a three-way showdown, Republicans believe there is a strong likelihood that Cruz and Trump will be coming off earlier victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively, and riding momentum into South Carolina. Rubio at that point would find himself combating not just a pair of proven winning candidates, but a post--New Hampshire narrative of a two-man race.

The Cruz campaign, meanwhile, is intent on going toe-to-toe with Trump and wary of the looming threat posed by Rubio. They have consistently attempted to undermine any scenario -- such as the one Rubio's team is now describing -- in which the Florida senator remains viable without a victory in one of the first two states. Cruz aides flooded the spin room in Charleston last week declaring that the GOP primary campaign had become a "two-man race." And, following an earlier debate in Las Vegas, Cruz predicted that Rubio wouldn't be a finalist for the nomination if he didn't win New Hampshire.

"Marco is perceived by many to be the most formidable candidate in the moderate lane. But he has serious competition in the moderate lane," Cruz told National Review in an interview at the time. "Look, the winner of the moderate lane has to win New Hampshire. And right now there are a number of moderates who are competing vigorously for New Hampshire, and at this point it is not clear to me who will win."

Cruz entered the White House race with a conventional view of what the Republican contest would boil down to -- a conservative who wins Iowa versus a moderate who wins New Hampshire -- and he maintains it to this day. Trump's emergence and sustained success did not fundamentally alter Cruz's perspective on the role of the early states in winnowing the field, even after it became clear that Trump was on track to win New Hampshire.

Rubio's team has a very different outlook. They see Trump's candidacy -- and his expected victory in New Hampshire -- as transforming the structure of the primary season. Coupled with a Cruz victory in Iowa, it would send a significant chunk of the GOP electorate into full-blown panic and create an unprecedented demand for a single center-right candidate to oppose them.

If that happens, Rubio's team believes he is ideally positioned to fill that vacuum, to challenge Cruz and Trump as the establishment favorite, to win South Carolina and reset the GOP race. But first he must prove in Iowa and New Hampshire that he -- not Christie, Kasich, or Bush -- actually is the establishment favorite, and in a way that leaves no doubt in their minds about it.

“Rubio’s team “

Sadly, NR is NOT going to expose WHO is Rubio’s team. They are the worst of the worst open border, cheap labor trade agreement bunch of hacks in DC. Rubio was picked for this by them....Cesar Conda, his chief of staff found Rubio. Conda is also mentor to Paul Ryan..the guy who brought him into DC politics.

Grover Norquist...if you don’t know his corrupt and powerful influence, you shouldn’t be voting. Married to a Pakistani Muslim, promoter of the Mosque at Ground Zero, pusher of every amnesty who along with Conda, and Steven Moore of Heritage destroyed Prop. 187 in Calif,.

MUST READ: Refresher: Rubio’s Deceptions

https://klsouth.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/refresher-rubios-deceptions/

[snip] To understand Rubio, you have to understand his Chief of Staff; a man by the name of Cesar Conda. Who is Cesar Conda? He’s a pro-amnesty immigration lawyer, who once worked as a DC lobbyist for the Association of Immigration Lawyers [video], mutual friend and close associate of fellow amnesty pusher Grover Norquist, who together have carried out their three-decade long Amnesty Jihad. Like Norquist, the amnesty pushers on the left like Cesar Conda.

Norquist, a corporate lobbyist and co-founder of the Islamic Institute, has had ties to CAIR, radical Islam, known terrorist financiers and unsavory relationships with Muslim activist for years. This video warrants particular scrutiny of Norquist, who actively promotes and advances the Islamic agenda. These are Norquist’s bedfellows; it’s why he actively petitioned support for the “Ground Zero Mosque” and it’s why he is very active in “Muslim outreach.”

Norquist is on the Advisory Board of The Hispanic Leadership Fund, member of the Council on Foreign Relations [CFR], Founder of Americans for Tax Reform [ATR] and good pal of felon Jack Abramoff and GOP stooge Karl Rove whose Crossroads GPS group has been a major donor to Norquist’s fund. Secret emails exclusively obtained by Breitbart News show the libertarian Cato Institute, Norquist’s ATR, and Rubio colluding on immigration reform “messaging” after the Boston Marathon bombing.

And, then there is Norquist’s lobbying on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Norquist’s primary interest in DC is Norquist. For his part, he is hitting the media trail attempting to combat what he calls the “bitter enders” who oppose the bill by trying to counteract the effect of “a handful of radio talk-show hosts who talk loudly.” Also assisting Rubio, Conda and Norquist in their Amnesty scheme is the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC], a Soros-backed group. SPLC’s history.

Cesar Conda sat on the Editorial Advisory Board with George Soros of the publication, The International Economy Magazine. He also actively worked to promote and advance Judge Sotomayor’s nomination. Conda was a lobbyist for the powerhouse private prisons GEO Group who supported open borders and government money for incarcerated illegal aliens. He also lobbied for the US Chamber of Commerce, who supports the Gang of Eight Amnesty bill. His paw prints also extend to the expensive bank bailouts, something Rubio claims he was against.

Conda is a domestic policy wonk. His government experience runs deep. In fact, Conda has weaved and bobbed between so many roles in Washington he was included in Roll Call’s “Fabulous Fifty” list of top congressional aides. He undertook policy roles spanning the 1996 Dole-Kemp to Mitt Romney’s 2008 Presidential Campaigns. Both Conda and Norquist worked together to destroy prop 187 in California in the 1990’s.

But, what also sets Rubio’s office apart is Cesar Conda’s supposed continued ties, major abuse of power, and financial relationship with his lobbying firm, Navigators Global. Navigators clients included GlaxoSmithKline, AT&T, Visa and Citigroup, which got $45 billion under the bank bailout. Rubio’s ties to K-Street are extensive. His deputy chief of staff, Sally Canfield, is a former lobbyist for Sanofi-Aventis, a French drug company.

And, from 1997 to 2005 Rubio himself, was a lobbyist. Consider what one of his most vocal critics said about him here, which likely put a halt to Romney selecting Rubio as VP candidate. Consider: City commissioner, lawyer, lobbyist, one-time GOP Party of Florida American Express card holder, top-echelon House leader and, ultimately, House Speaker, oh and Jeb Bush water boy. Florida is a politically corrupt state. From 2000 to 2010, there were 781 federal convictions on corruption charges. That’s an average of one every five days for 10 straight years.

Like Conda, Rubio has amnesty as a core belief. He is John McCain with an ‘accent’; and without a military record of crashing planes. His past record is relevant. All you have to do is look at history. This page provides history of the efforts of Floridians to enact immigration enforcement legislation in the 2008 Florida Legislative Session. All legislative results were thwarted, at the time, by House Speaker Marco Rubio.

Rubio stalled and “blocked” all enforcement bills in Florida stating: “There is nothing the state of Florida can do unilaterally to solve global warming. And there is nothing we can do unilaterally to solve immigration.” Rep. Juan Zapata, R-Miami and Miami Rep. David Rivera, the son of Cuban exiles, usually ran anti-enforcement interference for Rubio in the Florida House.

But there were other legislative matters. Rubio pushed for free in-state tuition for illegal aliens on Florida taxpayers dime. He fought to allow a “self pay” (no insurance) for medical care without the hospital collecting a balance on the hospital billing; while prohibiting the hospital from pursuing civil remedies. This would serve illegal aliens by protecting them from detection. And he made an attempt to keep all “working papers” (such as dead bills) from seeing the light of day to the public.

Rubio’s Amnesty Scheme [snip]

Stop blaming Schumer for the Gang of eight...That was ‘Rubio’s Team’

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