After “months of deliberation,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told an audience at Miami’s Freedom Tower this evening that he will run for president of the United States.
Rubio let the cat out of the bag earlier in the day while addressing donors on a conference call.
The senator said he chose the Freedom Tower as the place to launch his campaign “because it is a symbol of our nation’s identity as the land of opportunity.”
“How, united by a common faith in their God given right to go as far as their talent and work would take them, a collection of immigrants and exiles, former slaves and refugees, became one people, and together built the freest and most prosperous nation ever,” he said in prepared remarks, with a segue into his family’s own immigrant experience. “…My father became a bartender. My mother a cashier, a maid and a Kmart stock clerk. They never made it big. But they were successful. Two immigrants with little money or education found stable jobs, owned a home, retired with security and gave all four of their children a life far better than their own.”
The country’s leaders, Rubio said, “put us at a disadvantage by taxing, borrowing and regulating like it’s 1999.”
“…At the turn of the 19th century, a generation of Americans harnessed the power of the Industrial Age and transformed this country into the leading economy in the world. And the 20th century became the American Century. Now, the time has come for our generation to lead the way toward a new American Century.”
The member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee stressed that if “America accepts the mantle of global leadership, by abandoning this administration’s dangerous concessions to Iran, and its hostility to Israel; by reversing the hollowing out of our military; by giving our men and women in uniform the resources, care and gratitude they deserve; by no longer being passive in the face of Chinese and Russian aggression; and by ending the near total disregard for the erosion of democracy and human rights around the world; then our nation will be safer, the world more stable, and our people more prosperous.”
“This election is not just about what laws we will pass. It is a generational choice about what kind of country we will be,” he said.
Rubio characterized Hillary Clinton’s Sunday campaign launch as “a leader from yesterday began a campaign for president by promising to take us back to yesterday.”
“Yesterday is over, and we are never going back,” he declared.
The senator added that “we must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them.”
“That is why today, grounded by the lessons of our history, and inspired by the promise of our future, I announce my candidacy for president of the United States of America,” Rubio said, adding that he recognizes “the challenges of this campaign, and the demands of the office I seek.”
“I have heard some suggest that I should step aside and wait my turn,” the 43-year-old added. “But I cannot. Because I believe our very identity as an exceptional nation is at stake, and I can make a difference as president.”
“I am humbled by the realization that America doesn’t owe me anything; but I have a debt to America I must try to repay. This isn’t just the country where I was born; America is the place that changed my family’s history. I regret my father did not live to see this day in person. He used to tell me all the time: En este pais, ustedes van a poder lograr todas las cosas que nosotros no pudimos. ‘In this country, you will achieve all the things we never could.'”
“Whether or not we remain a special country will depend on whether that journey is still possible for those trying to make it now: The single mother who works long hours for little pay so her children don’t have to struggle the way she has. The student who takes two buses before dawn to attend a better school halfway across town. The workers in our hotel kitchens, the landscaping crews in our neighborhoods, the late-night janitorial staff that clean our offices and the bartenders who tonight are standing in the back of a room somewhere” — like his dad.
Rubio acknowledged the campaign will take him away from his wife, Jeanette Dousdebes, and their four children, who joined him onstage after the speech.
“But I have chosen this course because this election is about them,” the senator said.
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