Marco Rubio defines conservatism, talks Donald Trump at CPAC

Before departing for a Saturday afternoon rally in Jacksonville, Marco Rubio did something Donald Trump wouldn’t: address CPAC in DC just before the noon hour.

But the real issue for Rubio at CPAC was a different candidate altogether: Ted Cruz, his competition for the movement conservative lane. To that end, he delivered an earnest address, one devoid of the humor and personal connection that characterized that delivered by the other candidate the day before in front of the same body.

Rubio was slow to commit to speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference weeks ago, but his speech highlighted the group’s Saturday schedule, where he would be expected to make a textbook movement conservative pitch, a day after Ted Cruz enraptured the packed Potomac Ballroom, getting a rock star reception, and delivering a surprisingly warm yet definitively punchy recitation of neo-Reaganesque themes and one liners.

Trump’s decision to cancel his CPAC speech offered Rubio an opportunity to draw contrasts between himself and the non-doctrinaire GOP Frontrunner. The real question with the CPAC crowd, though, was one of whether Rubio could match the reaction that his fellow fortysomething Cuban American Senator got from the most clued in conservative crowd in the country.

The lead up boded well. Crowds were “filling the seats and lining the walls,” according to @CPAC Twitter. As the noon hour loomed, the crowd listened politely to a millennial talk show host as warm up.

But they wanted Marco, a candidate with a 98 percent American Conservative Union rating. Yelps went up from the raucous crowd when the woman introducing him said his name.

The “warm CPAC welcome” Rubio got included a half minute of applause followed by a mounting Marco chant, on the “seventh straight year” he spoke the CPAC.

Rubio remembered the first year he spoke, when he ran against Charlie Crist, talking about the pressure to be “less conservative” and moderate his message.

“At the beginning of that race, the only people who thought I could win were in my home,” Rubio said, but “it didn’t matter” to him.

Now? “The fundamental question… is what kind of country America’s going to be in the 21^st century?”

“The road we’re on right now,” said Rubio, is a “country that’s worse off.”

Rubio then posed the question of what it means to be conservative.

It’s not “simply an attitude,” and it’s not “the names you’re willing to call people.” It’s not “about fear or about anger – not at its best.”

“Neither anger or fear will solve our problems,” Rubio added.

Rather, conservative “principles,” such as knowing “our rights come from God” and not government, are central.

“We have reached the moment… when we think every problem in America has a federal government solution,” Rubio said.

The First Amendment is central to Rubio, as is the Second, which grants the “constitutional right to protect yourself and your family from terrorism.”

And “let’s return power back to the states,” while “re-embracing true free enterprise,” Rubio added.

Free-enterprise: “the best economic system in the history of the world,” Rubio continued.

“Conservatism means believing in a strong national defense,” as “weakness invites war.” The “US military” should be the “strongest military in the world.

And “standing by our allies, especially allies like Israel.” And “fighting radical Islam.”

As well, “traditional values” are central, along with “Judeo Christian principles.”

Rubio added that “conservatism is not built on personalities” but on “principles.”

His points: forceful and earnest, like Fred MacMurray selling insurance in Double Indemnity.

The applause never wavered. But the crowd was not rollicking as it did during the previous day’s Cruz speech.

Rubio’s cadence appropriated soaring tones of uplift, but what was clear: there was a lack of joie d’vivre. An earnest delivery, but no humor, and he used one pause of applause to cough out the dregs of his flu.

“I believe that the 21^st century is tailor made for America,” Rubio said, with the world full of “people who want to collaborate” with young people, like the conservatives at CPAC.

“We have to give them a chance. But they won’t have a chance… if the conservative movement is hijacked by someone who isn’t a conservative.”

That allusion to Trump, a reversion to the reactive persona he posed in recent news cycles, prompted a sustained, spontaneous reaction, a rapturous applause, that Rubio thwarted with a “I’m already over time.”

Rubio continued to get the right reaction during the Q&A with Dana Bash after the speech, with big applause when he said “Ronald Reagan looked nothing like Donald Trump.”

A better reaction came soon thereafter: “I’ve been sitting here for five minutes, and two out of three questions have been on Donald Trump.”

A worrying sign for Rubio: the best response he got was in reaction to Trump, a sign that in the novel that is the 2016 GOP Primary, he is more antagonist than protagonist.

Rubio also noted that he’d win Florida, because he has a history of beating people who aren’t who they say they are.

The results of the CPAC Straw Poll, and the mandate of movement conservative activists, awaits.