Jace Brady
Sen. Marco Rubio stood about five rows in front of me in an intimate town hall hosted by Mudd Advertising. To my left sat Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters and to my right another Marco Rubio fan. But I’d bet all four of us were blown away by Rubio’s potential as a politician.
He gave a powerful speech that aroused patriotism, and it is possible he elicited more laughs than Kevin Hart did in Carver-Hawkeye. He fielded questions from the audience ranging from VA reform to global warming and handled them all with competence and substantial policy ideas. While I walked into that forum unsure whom I would vote for in the Feb. 1 caucus, I left having committed to caucus for Rubio. Here’s why:
Rubio and I don’t agree on all policy issues. However, I feel that he is the most genuine of all the candidates running. When he says what changes he will make, I believe that he will do his best to follow through and not be seduced by special interests and other political forces. His commonsense solutions are reasonable, logical, and I feel there will be a swell of support from Congress when he arrives in the White House.
In many ways, America is more divided than it has ever been before. I truly believe that there is no other candidate with greater potential to bridge America’s divide than Rubio. He truly demonstrates the greatness and uniqueness of America, having been raised by Cuban immigrants and working his way to a serious contender for the highest office in the land. He will find ways to work across the aisle to find commonsense solutions to our biggest problems of the day, and I firmly believe that there will be a cultural renaissance in America if President Rubio becomes a reality.
The Republican Party has struggled to garner much support for the last two candidates it has thrown into the general election. John McCain was a grumpy maverick who would like nothing more to send every young man between the ages of 16 to 35 into a war to fight some petty cause. Mitt Romney may have been a little less hawkish but lived so far above the rest of America that it was never believable that he could relate with our plight. Rubio is young, he has risen from near poverty to become a U.S. senator, he had $100,000 in student loans just a few years ago, and is the first presidential candidate to whom I feel I can relate. Rubio is electable and can bring new demographics into the Republican Party with his vision of a new American century.
Regardless of your political party, I would encourage everyone to consider Rubio as the next president of the United States. You won’t agree with him on everything and he will do things that you may vehemently disagree with. However, occasionally there come times where bringing the country together is more important than individual issues. Rubio is uniquely qualified to take on that task, and I believe that a vote for Rubio will be a vote for unity.