Mark Levin: PJ Media's J. Christian Adams Is Right, Rubio Will Have a Major Electability Problem

Conservative radio talker Mark Levin cited my esteemed colleague J. Christian Adams yesterday to explain that Marco Rubio will have a very serious problem if he ends up the Republican nominee: the base will not support him.

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The reason, as Christian explained right here at PJ Media, is Rubio’s amnesty betrayal:

Some tell me that they don’t think immigration is the most important issue to Republican-inclined voters. Fine. We can differ. But to millions of blue collar Reagan Democrats and economically distressed middle class Americans who see the immigration fight as symptomatic of the lawless destruction of the country they love, it makes all the difference.

And herein lies Marco Rubio’s electability problem. If he was running in 1996, his amnesty support would play nicely on NBC Nightly News and in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. But it’s not 1996 anymore, and a very large and indispensable potential GOP vote get their news elsewhere and may stay home if Rubio is the nominee — namely, the base.

Levin praised Christian’s astute column, explaining that the establishment is repeating the mistake they made back in 2012, when they nominated Mitt Romney, the only Republican candidate who could not run against ObamaCare, which just so happened to be that election cycle’s number-one issue (just as immigration will be this year).

“What can he say?” Levin wondered. “What exactly will he say when the Democrats are running hard-left? When essentially they want to eliminate American sovereignty and American borders, and just open the whole thing up? They don’t give a damn. What’s the answer then? What will he say then? Well, he disagrees with them, but will he move left again?”

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The Great One continued:

So that is a fundamental issue, it’s a critical issue, among others — among others.

No, abandoning our principles means we’re abandoning America. Our principles are American principles. Oh, I’ve heard all the talk, ‘we need to be practical. We need to be able to cut deals.’ Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not hard to cut deals. It’s not hard to be ‘practical,’ whatever that means. They do that in Washington all the time, that’s what they tell us. […]

They’re cutting deals all over place, except that you and I don’t get to see ’em! They’re always in the shadows, always under ground. They’re always presented to us as some great accomplishment: ‘Look at that they can get something done!’

No they can’t. They can’t get anything done that needs to be done. Because they don’t agree with us, they don’t believe in us. That’s a fact.

And so everything is lining up for us. You’ve got kooks running on the Democrat side: an out of the closet marxist and an in the closet marxist, as I’ve said before. They’re extremely vulnerable, in every way — in every way. We can nominate a conservative, that’s the standard bearer of the Republican party, and yes, there are certain candidates that are more conservative, more effective, more principled than others. […]

Look, I will vote Republican against any of those Democrats, but that’s not where we are right now. We’re in the primary process, we’re voting Republican against Republican. This is where we have to make a decision. […] The country is being killed, it’s being destroyed. And now’s the time for all good men and women to speak out, and don’t get drawn into this Washington debate, and manipulation. We’re being manipulated right now by old media, and some in the new media. They want us focused on things that in the end do not matter. They want us focused on little things, and little men, and little women — trinkets — when the fate of the country is at stake.

The fate of the country is at stake right now, in this election.

Barack Obama became president of the United States twice because we nominated the wrong people. They would not articulate our principles, they would not an alternative course. They were mush. We were told they were the only ones who could win. ‘McCain’s it! He’s the only one who can win!’ He’s the only jerk who could lose. ‘Hey that Romney,’ we heard it from Rove over and over again, there with his third grade white chalkboard and his little pen. […]

The losers get to define us. But we’re going to lose the elections if this keeps up. We’re going to lose the capacity to nominate the most conservative candidate possible — who is supported by young people and blue collar workers. That doesn’t mean he’s going to win every state, no he’s not as a matter of fact. Some states are more liberal than others, some are more moderate than others. But the point is: the capacity to reach out where we have failed before. We’ve not been getting the young vote, we’ve not been getting the blue collar vote. And it turns out in Iowa, among the big three — Cruz, Trump and Rubio — Rubio did the worst with the blue collar vote and young people.

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Remarkably, the candidate the establishments tells us can’t win — Ted Cruz — actually did best among those voters.

And that tells us all we need to know about the establishment’s “expertise”: they are experts in losing. If conservatives want to win again, they need to ditch the candidates favored by the establishment and support those who can unite the base and young voters and Reagan Democrats.

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