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Rubio the Absentee Senator

He's neglecting his job at the same time that he's running a weirdly lazy, understaffed presidential campaign.
marco rubio

Paul Waldman cuts Rubio far too much slack on his Senate absenteeism:

If we’re going to expect candidates to walk halfway across Iowa and New Hampshire meeting voters in people’s living rooms and diners and elementary schools, and expect them to be available for media interviews, and expect them to give speeches, and expect them to prepare for and participate in debates, and expect them to raise the money necessary to build a large campaign organization and air lots of ads, and expect them to develop detailed policy plans on a wide spectrum of national issues, it’s ridiculous for us to also expect them to devote all the energy and time to their old job that they did before they started running for president. It just isn’t humanly possible.

It may be unreasonable to expect all of this from the candidates, but it’s hardly impossible. We know that because at least some of Rubio’s competitors have been doing all of it. Somehow the other senators still in the race have spent more time in the early states and showing up to work in the Senate than Rubio. Rubio isn’t just neglecting a job he clearly wants to leave. He’s neglecting his job at the same time that he’s running a weirdly lazy, understaffed presidential campaign in which he puts in the bare minimum amount of legwork as a candidate. And he’s doing this when he’s already decided not to run for re-election, so he’s short-changing Floridians for the sake of lagging behind in every state and nationally. If he’s so committed to his presidential bid, he could resign tomorrow and create an opening to be filled by someone who could actually do the job he was elected to do. Since he won’t do that, it seems perfectly fair to hold his absenteeism against him.

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