Sioux City, Iowa
The last time Marco Rubio made an appearance in Sioux City, in late October, he was in a distant third place in Iowa polls, behind Donald Trump and Ben Carson. Not much has changed since, not even the venue (a restaurant and banquet hall overlooking the Missouri River). Another social-conservative favorite, Ted Cruz, has replaced Carson. And with the Iowa caucuses just two days away, the crowd for Rubio is a little larger and more engaged than in the fall.
The Florida senator, clad in a gray Under Armor pullover, sounded a bit hoarse as he took the microphone Saturday morning. He began with a serious exhortation about the importance of the upcoming election. “This election is so important because this election is not just a choice between political parties. This election is a referendum on our identity,” Rubio said. “In essence, what you’re going to be asked to decide, beginning Monday in the caucus, is what kind of country do you want America to be in the 21st century?”
Suddenly, the cell phone of an audience member sitting behind Rubio began ringing loudly. “Go ahead, somebody’s calling on FaceTime,” Rubio said as the crowd laughed. “Who is it?”
“She didn’t get up in time,” the audience member responded, gesturing toward his phone.
“I thought it was Hillary’s email server calling,” Rubio shot back with a big smile. The audience applauded even louder. Sure, the joke didn’t quite make sense, but Rubio was feeding off the crowd’s energy and enthusiasm. There’s something else different, too: a feeling of muted confidence.
Several recent polls show Rubio inching up into the upper teens, still several points behind Trump but within striking distance of Cruz. Politicos here in Iowa are talking a lot about “Marcomentum,” based not just on Rubio’s rise in the polls but also on Cruz’s decline. Cruz seems to recognize Rubio’s movement, too, with he and his surrogates aiming more of their fire in Rubio’s direction. The Cruz campaign has also launched a last-minute TV ad hitting Rubio for being the “Republican Obama” and supporting “tax hikes” and “amnesty.” Those moves suggest Cruz is sensing momentum for his rival.
The Rubio campaign has even started promoting the idea of Marcomentum. Privately, an aide is much more cautious, acknowledging to THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the upward trend is real while downplaying expectations. “My guess is we’ll be in the mid-teens,” said the aide about the final outcome on February 1. “If we hit 20 percent, I will be popping the champagne.”
Whether or not Marcomentum is real, Rubio still has some convincing to do. Lowell Cooper is 82 years old and says he is “absolutely” still deciding about which candidate to support at his caucus. He and his wife Rita both say Rubio and Cruz are on their “short list” but say the entire field is admirable. “They’re all, we think, real, real good,” says Cooper, who adds that he’s looking for someone who appreciates the Constitution.
Jeff Gebauer, 59, says he’s also still “candidate shopping,” looking for “somebody that’s willing to be open-minded.” Gebauer caucused for Rick Santorum in 2012 and says he might still support the former Pennsylvania senator. But Rubio has impressed him, he says, as someone who can fill the presidential role as the face of the United States to the rest world. The same doesn’t go for Trump and Cruz, both of whom Gebauer says he could not support. “They’re too severe,” he says.
Rubio seems to have anticipated a desire among some Iowa Republicans for a more sober head of state than what, say, Trump would bring to the office. “Whether you agree with me or not on all the issues, I will never embarrass you,” Rubio said near the end of his appearance here. “I carry that with me even now. When I’m on a debate stage, when I’m out speaking, when I interact with people, I never want to do anything that makes people who supported me cringe and be embarrassed that they supported me.”
If there’s anything about Rubio that conservatives in Iowa might cringe at, it’s his past support for the comprehensive immigration reform effort in 2013. The final question in Sioux City Saturday morning came from a man in the front row who asked, not in a hostile manner, about immigration. “Would you take a minute and talk about the so-called Gang of Eight situation? You took a lot of flack on that,” the man said.
“Well, look, immigration is an issue I know personally, and I want to fix it,” Rubio said. “When I’m president, that’s not the way we’re going to do it. We’re going to do it our way, not the way that the Democrat majority in the Senate wanted to do it.”
Rubio argued the most urgent immigration issue has now become the threat posed by radical jihadists attempting to enter the country by exploiting refugee policy. He also called for enforcing current immigration laws and securing the southern border before making any moves to reform the system.
“We’ll see what the American people are willing to support once that’s in place,” Rubio said. “I don’t believe we’re going to round up and deport 12 million people. I don’t. I don’t believe that’s a realistic policy. I also don’t believe we’re going to hand out citizenship cards to anybody. That’s not going to happen either. There has to be consequences for violating our immigration laws. Some people are not going to be able to say. They will have to be deported or leave.”
As the crowd of people gathered to take photos and shake Rubio’s hand, Lowell Cooper said he found the senator “very informative” and left the event “somewhat” convinced to caucus for him. Asked if he would be attending the Ted Cruz event in Sioux City Saturday evening, Cooper nodded and said, “See you there.”
