Rubio's right but still wrong for Tea Party

Rubio's right but still wrong for Tea Party

Cliff Owen/AP

Senator Marco Rubio, who sits just right of Michele Bachmann on the political spectrum, has come under fire from Birthers claiming he's not a natural-born citizen.

Don't believe me? Just ask any birther.He may be "rubio" (blond) and a Tea Party poster boy, but Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American freshman senator from Florida is not American enough.

No, being "rubio" (if only in name), or taking far-right political positions is not enough to qualify him as a real red-blooded American, a birther's faction insists.

Irony of ironies, Rubio, the GOP Great Latino Hope from the swing state of Florida, Tea Party darling and a supposed shoe-in for the vice presidential nod, has joined that old usurper of the presidency, Barack Hussein Obama in the birthers' bipartisan not-American-enough-for-our-taste hit parade.

I can almost hear that old salsa classic playing in my head: "La vida te da sorpresas" (Life gives you surprises).

Rubio, 40, may be to the right of Michele Bachmann and hanging in there with the likes of tough-guy Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio in his anti-immigrant positions, but birthers go postal imagining this child of immigrants a heartbeat away from the presidency.

I mean, who does he think he is?

"Marco Rubio is not now and never can be a Natural Born Citizen because his [Cuban] parents were not citizens at the time he was born ...," the blogger "Obama Release Your Records" recently pontificated.

Even though he was born in Miami, he can never be President or vice president, the argument goes. And if the Constitution says otherwise - as the 14th Amendment does - too bad. Birthers know best.

As we know by now, old birthers never die, they just keep babbling away.

Rubio has said he is not interested in the vice presidency , but has gone out of his way to prove to the GOP ultraconservative faction that he is just like them. Actually, after becoming a senator he has placed himself so far to the right that next to him even George W. is a flaming Socialist.

Liberal was always a dirty word for him, but Rubio was never this much of a reactionary. His metamorphosis from "moderate" to ultraright-winger magically happened during his ascension from state legislator to the national scene.

The son of Cuban parents even turned his back on immigrants, a position that sets him apart from fellow Cuban-American ultrafar-right Florida politicians, Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart and Ilena Ros-Lehtinen.

Now Rubio supports mandatory E-Verify, has adopted the vacuous GOP mantra "border security first," and despite past support for a Florida in-state tuition bill, now opposes the federal DREAM Act.

But no matter how far right he goes, Rubio will never be American enough for some crazies in the birthers movement.

The GOP's Great Latino Hope could turn out not to be such a good idea after all.

A poll conducted by Latino Decisions on the eve of last November's election found 78% of Cuban-Americans would vote for Rubio, but only 40% of non-Cuban Latinos would do the same. And this was during his moderate phase.

"Unfortunately for him and the GOP, Latino voters clearly care more about a candidate's immigration stance than his or her ethnicity," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice. "In the bright lights of a presidential campaign, Rubio's hard-line stance on immigration will likely become a liability in the eyes of Latino voters, regardless of his own background."

Rubio has done his best to sell himself as a real American in the Tea Party mold, so much so that he has even turned his back on immigrants. But, hey, "la vida te da sorpresas," and not everybody is buying.

Vice President Rubio? Who does he think he is?