How can a guy who hates the Senate so much he’s quit on it in his first term claim that as a qualification for the Presidency? Those are the people he’d have to work with. At least Palin had the grace to resign.
Yes, he would, Norm.
Well, you have to admire him for trying. “He wouldn’t quit if he were a quitter.” This is going to look terrible for his campaign.
Palin-Rubio '16: The Undefeated!
Shouldn’t that be “The Incompleted”? 
I hate to stick up for Rubio, but he isn’t proposing quitting mid-term is he? I thought he was merely declining to run again. As far as quitters go, Palin serving only 2 years of a 4 year term is much more damning than Rubio’s serving a full 6 year term.
Yea, I don’t think its equivalent to Palin. She dropped out mid-term, and not to seek a higher office. Rubio’s just not running again, and it sounds like the rules in FL make it necessary if he’s going to continue his Presidential run (though I’m not exactly clear on why he can’t at least wait till he knows if he’ll win the nomination, or at least the results of the early primary states).
Though as an excuse for missing Senate votes for this term, “I’m quitting anyways” leaves something to be desired.
He’s already quit the work. He just hasn’t quit the office.
He’s using it as his excuse for not actually doing the job now (missing votes and so on), so while it’s not quite a Palin situation it’s more than just declining to run again.
Sure, but who actually does his job full time when running for president? I think not many.
Hardly anyone. But I’ve never heard another candidate defend his attendance record by saying he didn’t really want to be there anyway.
Sure, I don’t think its a big deal Rubio has been missing votes. Pretty much every sitting senator does when they make a Presidential run, and the job is flexible enough that I don’t think it really does any damage to the Country or anything.
But they also always get attacked for it by their opponents, and usually have a more convincing excuse at the ready then, “fuck it, I’m out in a year anyways”. The article also quotes Rubio giving what’s basically the standard excuse (that the votes missed were just symbolic anyways). I imagine that was his canned, talking points answer. Its just funny that he slipped up once and gave an honest answer, and that that answer was basically the same one High School seniors use for getting bad grades in their last semester.
Probably not going to miss any votes that are not already foregone conclusions, so its kinda moot, his being a part-time Senator. If the Dems use that against him, I will register a firm “tsk! tsk!”, though I doubt this will go down in infamy like the Great Massachusetts Massacre, which horror still haunts our nation. Well, some of our nation.
The committee meetings last year bother me more. Most of the votes are just putting the official seal on the result everyone knows by the time they hold them. I admire the work he tried to do intentionally reaching across the aisle to get something, **anything **, useful done. That part makes me like him more. Giving up makes me leery of whether he’s got the determination to keep fighting if we gave him a new role. Saying he’s fed up is both refreshing and troubling.
I wish he’d used fed up to instead become an absolute pain in the ass. Filibuster every meaningless resolution or sham vote by attacking all the things that the Senate isn’t doing. Be that guy who filibusters for three hours on a resolution recognizing the winner of the World Series. C-Span would be a lot more interesting at least.
He’s also mildly fucking over his party, in that he’ll be freeing up a Senate seat in a purple state in a year where turnout is likely to be more Dem favorable than it was when he was elected. Obviously the GOP wouldn’t mind if he was trading it in for the Oval Office (or even, to run in the General Election for that office), but by locking in his choice during the primaries, it means he’ll be putting an important Senate seat at risk.
As a Dem, I certainly don’t mind that. But I’d be annoyed if I was a Republican that he only decided to stay in the Senate for one term. I was kinda pissed at Jim Webb for doing the same thing on the other side in 2012.
He and Kim Davis should form a support group for people who want to keep their jobs without having to do the work.
This may be the oddest political move yet from the Republicans…quit your political job in order to concentrate on politics. Didn’t a certain Sarah Palin do the same sort of thing in Alaska? (I want to be well known and considered a political pundit, but I don’t want to actually be a politician), and now we have Rubio vexed with the impasses in the Senate, largely created by his Tea Party cronies. So he is taking his ball and going home, in schoolyard metaphor.
All I can say is WTF? What potential voter looks at such a move and says “Now that is the candidate I want for President!”
Dole quit the Senate to run for President, so there’s a precedent. Though IIRC he already had the nomination locked up at that point, and at 73 the optics were a little different, since “WH or retirement” makes a little more sense at that age. Rubio presumably doesn’t intend to end his career at 45, even if he doesn’t go to the WH.
Not seeking re-election is not the same as quitting.
This articleis a few days old, but on the Senate floor last week, Rubio said of a bill he was pushing:
Yeah, fuck those federal employees who stop doing their jobs and can’t be fired.
Regardless of his hypocrisy, he is right. There should be performance goals, and those goals should be used to decide who gets the raises, who gets the promotions, and who gets kicked out of public service.
If the military can be run as a meritocracy, so can the civilian workforce of the government.