Marco Rubio is catching bad news at a bad time. Today's news report that Rubio and NY Senator Chuck Schumer went to New York and sat down together in the Executive Dining room for News Corp and met with Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes of Fox News and talk radio opinion leader Rush Limbaugh.
Here is the NY Times article: http://goo.gl/2XrUla
 |
| Breitbart delighted to re-publish the story |
Everything about the trip to New York has a feel of deceit: going there with a liberal Democrat Schumer, traveling to New York instead of a meeting at the Capitol, an Executive Dining Room instead of an office, to meet top opinion makers. It is the image of salesman, hat in hand, to see the big client.
But it gets worse: they met, so the story goes, to ask that Fox and Limbaugh go easy on them for the immigration bill proposed by the Gang of Eight. They were asking Fox and Rush to feed the audience a certain spin. Rubio recognized that the Fox/Rush audience was anti-immigrant and inclined to be distrustful of the proposed immigration reform, so they wanted the media leaders to help sell the bill to their audiences with favorable stories. There wanted management to send the word out to the news and opinion people to go easy.
The story puts the spotlight on the ugly problem for the GOP. GOP elites on Wall Street, K Street, its donors, and its media voice at Fox all support a pro-immigration position while GOP voters do not. Trump represents the will of its voters; Rubio represents the will of its elites. And Rubio has been exposed, representing elites, not the gut instincts of the voters and the Fox audience. And since Murdoch is pro-immigrant, he agreed.
But it gets worse: they met, so the story goes, to ask that Fox and Limbaugh go easy on them for the immigration bill proposed by the Gang of Eight. They were asking Fox and Rush to feed the audience a certain spin. Rubio recognized that the Fox/Rush audience was anti-immigrant and inclined to be distrustful of the proposed immigration reform, so they wanted the media leaders to help sell the bill to their audiences with favorable stories. There wanted management to send the word out to the news and opinion people to go easy.
The story puts the spotlight on the ugly problem for the GOP. GOP elites on Wall Street, K Street, its donors, and its media voice at Fox all support a pro-immigration position while GOP voters do not. Trump represents the will of its voters; Rubio represents the will of its elites. And Rubio has been exposed, representing elites, not the gut instincts of the voters and the Fox audience. And since Murdoch is pro-immigrant, he agreed.
The story is the worst possible for Rubio and the best for Trump. It shows Rubio as a deceitful conniver in a conspiracy, corrupting both himself and Republican media. It validates Trump's argument that Fox cannot be trusted.
Marco Rubio had had a good 24 hours in the news cycle leading up to the SEC primary. He looked very comfortable mocking Trump's mis-spellings in his tweets, saying Trump could not spell "choke". Rubio laughingly described Trump backstage at the debate nervously dabbing on makeup in a desperate attempt to cover a "sweat mustache". He is keeping it up, criticizing Trump University, Trump's spray on tan, Trump's use of foreign workers, where Trump's ties are made, on and on, all in a tone of mockery. (Trump responded with a photo of Rubio also putting on makeup.) Of course everyone on TV in a debate format wears makeup because otherwise one's face shines and all the viewers see is glare, not skin. But since Trump's brand is alpha-male dominance, the image of Trump nervously doing anything, especially putting on makeup, was in conflict with the Trump brand, so Rubio is using in in his ridicule. Typically it would be Trump dismissively swatting away criticism, but in this scene Rubio reversed the roles. Trump was the sweater, not the swatter. Rubio raises the question: is Trump a fraud? Are we being conned by phony bluster and stage makeup?
It was too good to last for Rubio.
Because the story fits the Cruz narrative of Rubio's insincerity and Trump's narrative that the media cannot be trusted they are out there telling the story and every network other than Fox will gleefully give it time on the air. Watch for it: 'Here is our panel to discuss corruption at Fox!" "Collusion at Fox!" "Fox orders spin to sell its viewers!" Conservative news outlet Breitbart already considers it a "Bombshell Scoop".
No comments:
Post a Comment