Chris Timmons: The future is Marco Rubio's for the taking

Marco Rubio likes to say he’s representing the future of the Grand Old Party. (An oxymoron, no?)

He’s a new face, he’s young, he’s definitely not “low-energy” or overly familiar (Jeb Bush; Hillary Clinton), he’s sane (not Rand Paul), he has charisma (not Scott Walker), he’s unflappable (not Chris Christie), he’s not brash and false (The Donald), he’s not wedded to the stale views of yesterday: He’s something bold, exciting, fresh, a hint of glorious possibility.

But then, poke around a bit, and you find two Rubios. That was on display recently when Rubio spoke at a town hall meeting in front of 200 people in northern Nevada.

Rubio says the federal government could do without a Department of Education. He says the department is clueless, part of a federal behemoth that imposes too much on local schools. Its duties could easily be divided up among federal agencies.

It is part and parcel of the Common Core evil against the sacred realm of federalism.

Those comments are déjà vu worthy.

Think back to the Republican Revolution of 1994 when Newt Gingrich made the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education nearly the No.1 policy goal of the incoming Republican majority in Congress.

In any case, George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to have left this Republican obsession behind. Rubio is, of course, catering to the Tea Party crowd.

But there are other issues where the divide between the future and the past make Rubio a bit incoherent.

Rubio, light of the Republican future, defends an old-hat U.S. Cuba policy that had not put a dint into the harsh tyranny of Fidel Castro’s or his brother Raul’s regime in the 50 years it had been around.

Rubio, when attempting to bring some reality to U.S. immigration policy, flailed in bridging the gap between Republican nativists, the genuine needs of the U.S. economy, and the daily reality of illegal immigrants, and so the DREAM Act went down in parliamentary flames.

Rubio’s checkered career, in this sense, is not so unusual.

John F. Kennedy, with his New Frontier and Camelot image, was unable to forge a path of independence and breakaway from the limitations of the Democratic coalition and the parochial concerns of congressional leadership of the 1960s.

All his programs that aimed toward a better America and the future: the Civil Rights Act, or Medicare, for instance, were mired in legislative pettiness and mired because of the inability of the president to maneuver among the Old Guard without taking a false step.

You can also chalk it up to the general timidity of youth.

(Although JFK was often effective in charming subordinates, these tended to be nerds like the late historian Arthur Schlesinger or sensitive types like diplomat George Kennan. Not congressional titans.)

This double side of Rubio puts a question squarely before the Republican electorate: Is Rubio capable of withstanding a Mitch McConnell, a Harry Reid, a Nancy Pelosi (who learned her craft from a ward politician), or Steny Hoyer?

One could look to his term as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, but term limits among its members make Rubio’s claims a bit difficult to assess.

He had 100 Ideas for Florida, a sort of gimmicky, earnest campaign for solution-oriented ideas for Florida. But his term was, overwhelmingly, mediocre.

But if Rubio’s claims for Republican support is based on the contrast between the Old and the New, the future and the past, between the optimism of a fresh agenda and the pessimism of an old one, then it’s not looking like a bright future for the Grand Old Party.

Unless, of course, Rubio can escape the burdens of youth in a party that prefers deference and tradition.

In the end, the future is Rubio’s for the taking.

Chris Timmons is a writer living in Tampa. Column courtesy of Context Florida.