Mitch Perry
When both Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio opted last year to compete in the 2016 Republican presidential race, Florida Republicans had to decide which Miami-area candidate to support.
In most cases, they supported Bush. But after the former Florida governor’s campaign flamed out in South Carolina last month, expectations were that many of those same people would support the other native son.
It hasn’t exactly worked out like that.
A notable exception is Will Weatherford, who joined Team Marco immediately after Bush’s exit. The 2013-14 Florida House Speaker went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday to advocate for Rubio, but spent more time blasting the GOP for failing to knock down front-runner Donald Trump earlier.
“I’ve just been shocked at the way that the Republican Party has just allowed this man to hijack what I believe are our principals and where we stand as a party,” Weatherford said. “The things he’s said and done are so offensive, I don’t know how he wins in November. “
Bush was the first Republican presidential candidate to strongly criticize Trump, joking at one time that his colleagues were in the “witness protection program” when it came to speaking out against the surprise front-runner. Weatherford agrees.
“We had an opportunity back then to really define Donald Trump, and we lost it, and now here we are.”
Weatherford wouldn’t completely reject the idea of voting for Trump in the fall, but he’ll do so only if Trump changes what’s brought him so much success.
“I expect the nominee of the Republican Party to be presidential,” he said. “I expect them to care about the poor. I expect them to care about free markets and free enterprise. I expect them to care about life. This is not a person who has not embodied what I look for in a candidate for the Republican nomination, and somebody I can support in November.
“Now, is there an opportunity for him to earn that? Maybe, but he has not shown it thus far. And the divisiveness that he has created in this political environment and ecosystem is dangerous.”
Weatherford concluded that the only thing going well for Republicans is that the party will face either “a socialist” or a candidate “under criminal investigation” in November, a reference to Democrats Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
Sanders describes himself as a “democratic socialist,” while there is a State Department inquiry and FBI investigation into Clinton’s private email server. There is also a separate State Department investigation into the Clinton Foundation and top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
