I recall during the primaries for the Presidential nominations back in 2016, Marco Rubio’s campaign mostly stood out because he hadn’t really done anything in his political career. Voting as directed by the Party doesn’t count as doing anything, and while I dimly recall he worked on some sort of immigration legislation when he came aboard as a United States Senator, when the Party decided they didn’t like it, he didn’t stand and fight for it – he fled from it.
So, among this supposedly “deep bench” for the Republicans, he stood out mostly as the handsome fellow in a bunch of rather ugly guys.
Now, I must admit that Senator Barack Obama also didn’t have a great deal to show for his short time in the Senate seat from Illinois. But there is one key difference – he demonstrated features of leadership.
A lot of leaders demonstrate their “leadership” by getting out in front of a mob that is already headed thataway and they keep going thataway. There’s something to be said for such leadership, as in it helps to have someone shepherding the mob along. But such leadership is often flawed, as the leader is really there just to collect leader points and isn’t really paying a lot of attention to whether the direction is right.
One of the attributes of a real leader is that s/he recognizes that some facet of the more general group is flawed, and they’re the ones willing to step up, recognize it, and try to fix it. This is what Obama demonstrated during the Presidential campaign against Hillary and, later, McCain. Obama had the advantage in that he was stepping into the leadership vacuum effectively left behind by the Bush Administration. He could dispute any of the leadership initiatives from Bush and come off sounding good. But he also communicated very well – one of the best orators of his generation – and he came across as very authentic, very much his own man.
Rubio, on the other hand, along with his merry band of competitors, were not walking into a leadership vacuum. There are many contextual details which can cloud this picture. But let those details go…
So here’s Rubio, hip-deep in the Parkland massacre. This is his chance to show leadership. Is he getting there? Not according to Steve Benen:
These are the kind of conditions that tend to push politicians toward action, and with this in mind, Rubio unveiled new legislation on the issue last week. “We can do this,” the GOP lawmaker said. “What happened in Parkland doesn’t have to happen again. If we can work together, put aside our differences and focus on meaningful legislation that curbs gun violence – we can make real progress.”
Those are the kind of words one might ordinarily expect from someone advocating sweeping changes to the nation’s gun laws. But there seems to be a gap between Rubio’s bold vision and Rubio’s legislation.
Eight days ago, Marco Rubio endorsed raising the age requirement for buying a rifle from 18 to 21 and voiced openness to placing limits on the size of ammunition magazines.
On Thursday, when the Republican senator from Florida unveiled his plan to address gun violence, he did not outline any specific plans on these very divisive fronts.
Why not aim higher and include some of the popular measures discussed at the recent forum? “These reforms do not enjoy the sort of widespread support in Congress that the other measures I’ve announced do,” Rubio said Thursday.
Then, Senator Rubio, if you want to sit in the Oval Office some day, stand up and tell the GOP’s position is wrong for America. Hell, the measures you talked about are fairly timid as it is. If you’re going to stand out from the crowd in 2020 – and we both know Trump won’t be running then, despite having started his campaign machine up – you’re going to have to be a real leader. Not a fake leader, but a real one.
