Peter Schorsch
Campaigning is hard work. Campaigning for president is even tougher.
And running for president while working a “regular job” is tougher still – at least in the case of Marco Rubio.
For the Miami Republican, the road to the White House takes him away from his regular, taxpayer-funded gig as U.S. senator, where he holds the dubious title of lawmaker “least likely to show up.”
CQ Vote Watch estimated that, as of last week, Rubio voted only 68.7 percent of the time: the worst attendance of any sitting senator.
Nevertheless, in a significant departure from his previous campaign stance, Rubio defends his record – or lack thereof – telling Fox News he would make himself available for “important votes.”
In the past, though, he had no qualms with blasting lawmakers for following such a loose work schedule.
“Why do you get paid to be here, then, if you’re not going to vote on anything … If you don’t want to vote on things, don’t run for office. Get a talk show.”
It’s a strategy that worked before – and may work again. But this time, Rubio will be on the short end.
During Florida’s 2010 Senate race, the Tampa Bay Times reported the line was used to attack Gov. Charlie Crist for failing to push a plan by Rubio – a former Florida House Speaker — to swap homestead property taxes for a higher sales tax.
“With his support of deficit spending, cap-and-trade climate-change legislation and $2 billion in new taxes and fees, we’re probably better off with him not showing up to work,” he said.
At the time, it was a bipartisan issue. Both Rubio and Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek were hitting Crist – a former Republican running as independent – hard on his 2006 pledge to “come to work every day.”
“It’s clear that was just another thing he was willing to say to get elected,” Rubio campaign spokesman Alex Burgos told the St. Augustine Register.
And like their boss, Alex Conant, who’s Rubio’s communications director, and Todd Harris, a campaign consultant, also have a track record of attacking opponent attendance.
In the 2014 Iowa U.S. Senate race between Republican Joni Ernst and Democratic U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, Conant and Harris regularly tweeted reports of Braley’s “troubling” record of poor committee attendance and missing most Veterans’ Affairs hearings.
Undeniably, it was a successful strategy, producing winners in both races – Rubio in 2010 and Ernst in 2014 – and there is little reason to believe it wouldn’t work again.
In fact, Rubio’s lax record in the Senate is already resonating with voters in early primary states.
At a town hall this week in Derry, New Hampshire, Rubio began running defense, telling an audience member that he wasn’t in the Senate because he was “here taking to you.”
Which begs the question: How would Rubio reply if Crist said the same thing in 2010?
