Free Republic

Sen. Marco Rubio is once again breaking from Donald Trump ... defending Colin Kaepernick's right to protest and telling TMZ Sports why he absolutely SHOULD be on an NFL roster. "Look, I support his right to stand for what he does," the republican senator tells us ... "I don't agree with what he did but I support his right to do it." "But if we're just talking football ... there aren't 63 better quarterbacks in the world." FYI, Rubio is assuming there are 64 quarterbacks currently on NFL rosters. Rubio said he's not sure if the NFL owners actually colluded...

...Rubio seems to have what it takes to be the last man standing. Here are several reasons why: 1) He Bridges the Grassroots Conservative-Republican Establishment Divide...while many writers are now saying Rubio could supplant Jeb Bush in the so-called “establishment lane” for the nomination, the reality is Rubio has his feet in both the establishment and the conservative grassroots — and what’s more, he has been able to successfully straddle that divide for some time. That seems to be a huge plus in his favor. 2) He Doesn’t Turn Off Many Segments Of The Republican Base...Though some in the conservative...

Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer endorsed Marco Rubio Friday: In a letter that Mr. Singer sent to dozens of other donors, Mr. Singer described Mr. Rubio…as the only candidate who can 'navigate this complex primary process, and still be in a position to defeat' Hillary Rodham Clinton. Amnesty In 2013, Singer spent millions to enact Marco Rubios amnesty plan (which passed the Senate, but died in the House): Singer made the donation to the National Immigration Forum. The group has been focusing, in part, on getting support from the business community, faith leaders and law enforcement for the reform...

In Wednesday night's CNBC Republican debate, Marco Rubio found the thus-far mysterious and elusive juju that only Donald Trump and Ben Carson have been able to tap into in a primary dominated by otherwise utterly unexplainable forces. How, for example, have Trump and Carson been able to rise through the polls while offering little substance and making dozens of controversial statements that would be disqualifying for any other candidate? While many have insisted it's merely the fact that they aren't politicians, I think it goes deeper than that, and Rubio is perhaps the first so-called "establishment" candidate to figure it...

Failed ‘Gang of Eight’ architect Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 79%said on Sunday that frontrunner Donald Trump’s immigration plan to put Americans ahead of foreign workers and alien criminals “makes no sense.” “No, his rhetoric is a little louder, but if you think about where he was six months ago, his position on immigration six months ago was nothing like what he’s saying now, and even what he’s saying now borders on the absurd,” Rubio said on CNN’s State of the Union. “He’s going to deport all these people, and then he’s going to allow back in the ones that are...

I want to support Marco Rubio, but today I can’t. He may not have burned all his bridges to us conservatives, but he charred the hell out of them with his flirtation with the Gang of Eight and his disingenuous embrace of amnesty. Right now, a huge and decisive bloc of conservatives will not vote for him. So, can he ever win us back? Maybe. That depends on him. Entirely on him. Rubio has plenty going for him. For one thing, he can talk – Rubio can put a sentence together without sounding like he’s in a cage match with...

Marco Rubio didn't want to be on the nation's political radar. Not this early in the presidential race. Not with so much time left for rivals to take aim at the big target on his back. -snip- His campaign announced disappointing fundraising numbers Thursday to top political donors gathered at the Bellagio Hotel on the Vegas Strip. Rubio collected about $6 million over the three months that ended Sept. 30 -- far less than competitors Ben Carson ($20 million) and Ted Cruz ($12 million), the only two other candidates in the field who have made their fundraising totals public so...

Following a second strong, if understated, debate performance late last month, Marco Rubio is currently riding a wave of positive press. He is “surging in the polls,” has “the hot hand,” and is even emerging as “the favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination.” With the summer of Trump coming to a close, it seems, we are at the cusp of a new stage of the campaign where the non-silly-season favorites begin to assert themselves and the race finally gets serious. And there is good reason why that means Rubio’s stock is on the rise: With Scott Walker out and...

Cycles in presidential campaigns begin with hopeful conjecture, outright lies, blind tabloid items that can’t ever be proved or disproved. This week the Marco Rubio cycle began. Marco Rubio is now the “front-runner” for the Koch brothers’ support and cash, the New York Daily News reported yesterday morning, citing a source “who ran into David Koch at a recent event in Manhattan.” That sourcing sounds pretty shaky — David Koch has never seemed like someone who blurts out his political plans to the restroom attendant, though, who knows, people always surprise you — but of course it’s hard to imagine...

Hundreds of donors to Jeb Bush's presidential campaign will gather later this month in Houston. They'll shake hands with a pair of former presidents, and high-profile lieutenants of the former Florida governor will push them to write generous checks. This weekend in Las Vegas, dozens of donors met up with Marco Rubio. They ate fast-food hamburgers, shook hands with a celebrity pawn-shop owner and played flag football with the Florida senator. "I'd say he threw five interceptions, maybe three or four touchdown passes," Wayne Berman, Rubio's national finance chairman, said playfully. "There were a lot of middle aged guys trying...

For months, Marco Rubio has run a low-key campaign, designed to keep a slow and steady pace. The past two weeks explain why. RIding a post-debate high in the polls, the newly threatening Rubio suddenly became a 2016 pin cushion, pierced by friends (Jeb Bush), rivals (Donald Trump) and strangers (Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig) alike. On Thursday evening, the ascendant Florida senator got whacked again as news of his surprisingly anemic quarterly fundraising went public -- he raised just $6 million between the end of June and the end of September, hardly the haul of a candidate with a bead...

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential campaign raised $12.2 million in the third quarter of this year, eclipsing the roughly $6 million that his GOP rival Sen. Marco Rubio brought in, campaign officials confirmed to CBS News. Rubio only managed to raise about half of the $12 million he raised in the second quarter. However, the Florida senator entered the month of October with about $11 million in cash on hand. Cruz's campaign did not reveal how much they had on hand. Rubio campaign officials said July and August were tough months for donations. Rubio's fundraising pales in comparison to Cruz's...

Far from the tourists on the Las Vegas strip, Marco Rubio breezed into the Havana Grill for Friday night happy hour with the certain lightness of a candidate on the upswing. There was a crush at the door and people standing on chairs in the dining room to try to get a glimpse of him — and though it's pretty hard to knock the Florida senator off his stump speech script, the crowd managed to do that. "They're handing out mojitos in the middle of my speech, I love it," Rubio said in slight amazement as he toggled between the...

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/marco-rubio-takes-lead-in-sheldon-adelson-primary-117268

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) says he enjoys provoking Donald Trump and watching the GOP front-runner "blow up." “From time to time we’ll respond, because it’s fun to watch him blow up even more,” Rubio said on Thursday of Trump's barbs, according to NBC Boston. “He’s a guy that’s sensitive to criticism,” he added. "So he reacts these ways, and it is what it is. This is how he gets attention.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) raised $6 million in the third quarter, a disappointing haul for a candidate who has been rising in the polls and lauded as a potential threat to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the GOP’s establishment mantle. That’s a drop from the $9 million Rubio raised in two-and-a-half months in the second quarter, after he launched his bid for the White House in mid-April. All told, Rubio has raised $18 million in hard campaign dollars this year, which includes about $3 million for his Senate reelection bid that has transferred to his presidential account. The Florida...

<p>Donald Trump is escalating his attacks on Sen. Marco Rubio with a special delivery for his rival: "Trump Ice Natural Spring Water."</p>

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio was caught off guard during a campaign event Tuesday after a heckler accused him of adultery. A man was escorted out of New York City’s Civic Hall during a question and answer session with the Florida senator, after he ranted about a wire fraud between a reporter and Warren Buffett and accused Mr. Rubio of cheating on his wife. “How do you plan to deal with wire fraud?” the unknown man asked Mr. Rubio, The Hill reported. “How do you plan to deal with accountability? “The answer is you can’t,” the man continued. “You cheated...

An ad posted on Twitter mocking Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as "Little Rube" was nothing personal, says GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, just payback for Rubio's attacks on him. The ad, posted on Trump's Twitter account on Sunday, shows a picture of Rubio as an elementary school student contrasted to a recent photo of the billionaire businessman Trump appearing to adjust his cufflinks. "Never Hire a Boy to Do a Man's Job," the ad is headlined. "Marco Rubio seems like a nice boy," the copy begins. "Well mannered, but bought & paid for. JEB and the PACS sat him down...

Trump sent Rubio a case of branded “Trump Ice Natural Spring Water” with Trump’s face on it, according to CNN. “Apparently the water is high quality water, top notch water that Donald Trump sent us, so we’re grateful for the gift,” Rubio said with a grin during an interview on the Today show with Matt Lauer. Rubio was also asked about Trump’s gift during an appearance on Fox and Friends. “Apparently Evian are a bunch of losers,” he joked.