President Obama’s lone reliable surrogate, paid adviser David Axelrod, took to Spanish-language television Sunday to launch a pre-emptive strike against the possibility that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) might be Mitt Romney’s vice presidential pick. The young, telegenic, dynamic, conservative swing-state senator has been at or near the top of GOP vice presidential pick lists since he was speaker of the Florida House. Axelrod’s strike against Rubio takes a novel approach.
“I think it would be an insult to the Hispanic community to choose Senator Rubio if the thinks that that is somehow—if Governor Romney thinks that’s sort of a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of the things and the positions that he’s taken,” Mr. Axelrod said.
Insult Hispanics by nominating the first one to a major party presidential ticket? By that logic, Walter Mondale insulted women by choosing the late Geraldine Ferraro to join him on the 1984 Democratic ticket. Actually, of the two choices, Mondale’s arguably gets closer to being an insult since his chances of defeating Ronald Reagan in the ’84 election were far lower than Romney’s chances of unseating Obama this year. Mondale went on to lose 49 states to President Reagan. Polls now show Romney well within striking distance of defeating Obama in November.
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