The Book of the Week is “The Rise of Marco Rubio” by Manuel Roig-Franzia, published in 2012.
This volume’s opening words indicate that Rubio considers himself the focal point of the universe. He is admittedly a Ronald Reagan wannabe. He does have an appeaser personality, and the major essentials of a career politician–unctuous public speaking ability and phony friendships with wealthy donors.
Born in May 1971 in Miami, the third of four siblings, he has Cuban ancestry. In 1979, Rubio’s family moved to Las Vegas for four years. There, they, except for his father, converted to Mormonism. Rubio clearly has ambivalence about his religious bent, as it appears to be both Mormon and Catholic. He is against gambling.
Rubio graduated high school in 1989, having played on the football team. He started attending Tarkio College in Nebraska on a partial football scholarship. He eventually earned a law degree from the University of Miami Law School.
In 1996, Rubio worked for Bob Dole. In 1998, a moderate Republican, he was elected to the West Miami City Commission. Good at collecting valuable contacts, he became chummy with the mayor of his political territory, West Miami, which was like a small town of less than three thousand people.
The author’s language is unclear as to whether Rubio fathered a child before he married his girlfriend he’d had for eight years. But Rubio did assist with gerrymandering in his areas of dominant influence. In 2001 and 2002, he requested lots of pork barrel money, but asked for none the following year. For, then he ran for and got elected as a Representative in Florida.
Rubio copied a plan (but his was less helpful) from the Democrats, to add to the prescription benefits of financially struggling seniors. He created fundraising front groups for conservatives. Unfortunately, they “… were plagued by accounting glitches and perception problems.” They were actually financial patronage vehicles for his family members. In 2004, he unsuccessfully pushed for a state tax subsidy to pay for a new stadium for the Florida Marlins baseball team.
Rubio is a big spender with both taxpayer-, and his personal, moneys. Nevertheless, in 2010, he got himself elected US GOP Senator from Florida. During the campaign, he fancied himself a maverick with Tea Party support but after his victory, he distanced himself from those supporters. He is pro-life, favors reducing the national deficit but contradictorily– cutting taxes and increasing military spending.
In the summer of 2011, a “news” show on the network Univision was sniffing into decades-old trouble involving Rubio’s brother-in-law. Rubio’s brother-in-law was a private citizen, not a public servant, not paid by the taxpayers. Rubio asked the TV sleaze machine whether he could pry into the private life of the station’s news anchor. There was no comment.
Read the book to learn how Rubio was a mythmaker with regard to his family’s heritage, and other information.