Staff Reports
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has waded into partisan waters increasingly during Florida’s triple recount, as one might expect from one of Florida’s leading Republicans.
However, it wasn’t until Wednesday morning that he offered comment from his official perch.
“I’m not against the recount. A recount is mandated by law and should happen. The recount should happen, and every legal vote should be counted, but what we should not see happen here is that somehow lawyers are able to find federal judges that change Florida election law after the election, go in and basically order the state of Florida to ignore its own laws,” Rubio said.
“You cannot change the rules of the game after the game in order to win, because that would be stealing an election and that would be unacceptable,” Rubio added.
Substantially, this is what Rubio has been saying all along. There was even a tweet for the game metaphor.
Imagine if NFL team was trailing 24-22 but in final seconds hits a 3 pt kick to win. Then AFTER game lawyers for losing team get a judge to order rules changed so that last second field goals are only 1 point
Well that’s how democrat lawyers plan to steal #Florida election 1/4
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 14, 2018
In terms of tone, however, Rubio shows a moderation in his official persona that he has not exhibited in media appearances, including television and social media.
On Twitter Tuesday, Rubio channeled his inner Donald Trump, as he bemoaned “incompetent law breaking election officials lead to chance for lawyers to steal an election” and warned of a “potentially deliberate effort to delay final count” in Broward and Palm Beach Counties.
Linking to an article from the New York Times that disparaged the Republican posture in the recount, Rubio lambasted “Left wing commentators” who “have no shame just making things up.”
In a press conference organized last week by the Rick Scott campaign, Rubio struck a similar tone of conspiracy.
“I’m concerned about everything, because when you don’t even know how many ballots are there, and they refuse to tell you how many ballots they have, or how many ballots need to be counted, or when they came, you have to be concerned about the whole thing,” Rubio said Friday. “You have to be, given what we have seen in the past. So I’m concerned about the whole thing. Absolutely.”
