If money is the mother’s milk of politics, Marco Rubio just got an infusion that will keep him in Guernsey into the next millennium. America’s third richest and the world’s fifth richest man Larry Ellison jumped into his corner in the presidential race. The founder of Oracle and — more importantly to us tennis geeks — owner of the Masters 1000 BNP Paribas tournament at Indian Wells is holding a fund raiser for the Florida senator at Ellison’s California manse June 9.
Some of the biggest Republican money seems to be flowing toward Rubio — Miami car mogul Norman Braman, Ellison and — possibly — Sheldon Adelson.
This signals two things. One, the Jeb Bush fund-raising advantage may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Two, Rubio is in this for the duration.
With so many potential Republican candidates stepping up to the bar, there’s only so much of le grisbi to go around. The first debates will be more like a conga line. A winnowing out could happen relatively quickly.
UPDATE: Rubio is giving a foreign policy speech in New York today at the Council of Foreign Relations, calling for a stronger military, the protection of American economic interests abroad and what he calls America’s “superior aims” (moral authority) to act abroad.
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