Florida Sen. Marco Rubio seems to be everywhere all of a sudden.
Last week he called for a federal investigation into the owner of the Eureka Garden and Washington Heights apartment complexes in Jacksonville, Fla. This week he called for the Justice and Treasury Departments to investigate the Global Ministries, the corporation behind the housing complex.
He also gave an interview to the Guardian in which he said of his presidential campaign: “It’s not that we lost, it’s that Donald Trump won.” Early Wednesday morning, he defended New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez from Trump’s attacks.
He also has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “Obamacare: A Crony Capitalist’s Best Friend.”
These events are not all about one issue, as if he’s trying to build support for a particular bill he is about to introduce. It’s as if he’s suddenly discovered that he’s still a legislator elected by the people of Florida — or perhaps there’s something else going on.
Patricia Murphy notes in the Daily Beast that Rubio had “the worst voting record in the Senate in 2015,” casting just three votes once he began running for president. But in the two months since he suspended his campaign, he’s voted on every bill presented in the senate. And that’s not all.
Update: Team Rubio says Rubio cast 113 votes while running for president, not three, as the Daily Beast wrote.
“His schedule has transformed from an anywhere-but-Florida itinerary to traveling the state like Floridians once hoped he would. After a two year-absence from an ongoing ecological disaster on the state’s East Coast, Rubio returned to the scene after he dropped out of the campaign,” Murphy wrote. “He’s gone to to [sic] Orlando to talk about the heroin crisis and to Jacksonville to bust the landlords of a dilapidated HUD-sponsored apartment complex there.”
His focus is decidedly Florida, pushing bills that would clean up the Everglades (I lived in Florida most of my life, “cleaning up the Everglades” is the equivalent to “fixing the Metro” in Washington, D.C.) and fight the Zika virus. He’s also now answering constituent email on YouTube, something he did earlier in his Senate career.
So why the sudden enthusiasm for a job he scorned while running for president?
Perhaps Rubio will fall into an endless cycle — like House Speaker Paul Ryan — of constant speculation as to whether he will run for this office or that office. I already engaged in that speculation back in March, just before he dropped out of the presidential race.
Now, everything Rubio says is analyzed through the spectrum of his next move. When a reporter asked him if he would run for re-election, Rubio said he had already stated what his intentions are and that there are already people running. When the reporter reminded him that the deadline to file to run again was the end of June, Rubio walked away but turned around and said “June 24,” while smiling.
Enter a new round of wild speculation. Rubio’s office claimed “It was a joke.” When asked this morning if all the spotlight Rubio has received is an indication that he is gearing up to run for re-election, his office again said definitively that “he will not be running for re-election.” Rubio, as he and his aides have said before, will become a private citizen in 2017.
Maybe we all just have to accept that.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
