HIALEAH, Fla. — When a campaign is in trouble, it’s tempting to view everything that happens in the context of a troubled campaign. So when, on the eve of the Republican debate, Marco Rubio returned to his home turf of Hialeah — the Cuban-American community where he first won political office as a West Miami commissioner — there was more than enough troubled-campaign context to go around.
Rubio advertised the event as a “Hialeah Rally With Marco,” to be held at 5 p.m. at Milander Stadium. The football and soccer field has bleachers that seat more than 5,000 people, but the Rubio campaign fenced off a tiny portion, one end zone out to about the 10-yard line, for the event. There was a small stage and folding chairs for perhaps 200-300 people, plus a press area. All of which gave Rubio, already facing reports of dwindling crowds and sagging enthusiasm, the bad optics of staging a small event in a very big venue.
The dramatically-minded saw other signs. A bell tolled. (Actually, it was just a nearby clock tower at 6 p.m.) A flag flew mournfully at half-staff. (It did, for Nancy Reagan.) The scoreboard behind Rubio was set to the fourth quarter. None of it really meant anything, except that people were now reading things in the context of a troubled campaign.
What was indisputably bad was the amount of time Rubio had to spend denying that he plans to drop out of the race.
“There are people spreading rumors that we’re going to end our campaign,” Rubio told the crowd in the English-language part of the event. (Rubio gave two speeches, English first and then Spanish.) “Let me tell you something. I will be on that ballot on Tuesday. I will campaign as long and as hard as it takes. We are going to the White House. We are going to win this nomination.”
People cheered, but it’s not the sort of thing any candidate wants to have to say at a rally. Nor would any candidate want his surrogates to have to say it either, as former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart did when he reminded the crowd of the Yogi Berra-ism that “it’s not over ’til it’s over.”
After the speeches, Rubio announced that Fox News’ Megyn Kelly would join him on stage to tape an interview to be played later that evening. Kelly’s first question, as it had to be, was, “Are you preparing to drop out?”
No, Rubio said, I’m not dropping out. And I’m not going to lose. The polls are wrong. The only poll that matters is on election day. And I’ve never talked about dropping out.
“That is 100 percent, categorically false,” Rubio said. “I have never discussed dropping out with anyone on my team or anyone on the planet earth. Or anyone on any planet, for that matter. I am not dropping out of this race.”
And then, to make matters worse, Rubio went from denying that he plans to quit to renouncing his own recent tactics, admitting that his campaigning of late has embarrassed his children, displeased his wife, and left him with regrets.
Kelly asked Rubio about his personal attacks on Donald Trump: the spray-tan, wet-his-pants, and penis jokes that Rubio incorporated into his stump speech for a few days after the February 25 GOP debate in Houston. Rubio’s insult-comic turn left donors and some voters dismayed. Did he have some sort of personality transplant?
Rubio was repentant. “That’s not who I am,” he told Kelly. Attacking Trump’s business dealings, like Trump University, is entirely legitimate, Rubio explained, and he will keep doing it. But not the Don Rickles routine.
“On the other stuff that has to do with personal stuff, you know, I’d do it differently,” Rubio said. “I really would. The reason — my kids were embarrassed by it. My wife didn’t like it. I don’t think it reflects good. That’s not who I am. That’s not what my campaign is going to be about or will ever be about again.”
“So you regret that?” Kelly said.
“Yeah, I’d do it differently,” Rubio answered. “On the personal stuff. I’m not telling you he didn’t deserve it, but that’s not who I am and that’s not what I want to be.”
Vowing not to drop out of the race and expressing regret for your actions is not the best debate preparation. And it led to speculation about how Rubio would approach the University of Miami debate Thursday night. Would he attack incessantly again, using his last chance to speak to the whole state before Tuesday? Or would he take a higher road, sticking more to policy and restoring the reputation he had before his insult-comic interlude?
As it turned out, mostly the latter. While Rubio did not refrain from disagreeing with Trump or criticizing his positions, Rubio was an entirely different debater from the man voters saw in Houston and, later, in Detroit. After the debate ended, top aide Alex Conant said that was entirely intentional.
“We wanted to remind people here in Florida why they elected him in 2010,” Conant said. “We wanted a substantive debate, wanted to talk about the issues.”
But it wasn’t just substance. Rubio seemed to have a different demeanor, too. “He said earlier this week that he regretted how personal some of the attacks had gotten in the previous debates and earlier in the campaign,” Conant said. “He wanted to refocus on the issues, and frankly, refocus on his core message, which is that this election is a generational choice.”
Remember the generational choice, the powerful message Rubio delivered when he announced his campaign here in Miami last April? There hasn’t been a lot of that from Rubio lately.
The question now is whether Rubio did himself so much damage that he is doomed to defeat on Tuesday. The last half-dozen polls in the RealClearPolitics average of polls have Rubio trailing Trump by 19 points, 19 points, 9 points, 23 points, 20 points, and 23 points — all taken in the last week. Rubio says he doesn’t believe the polls, but for the political veterans who do, it doesn’t look good.
The Rubio supporters who came to the stadium were fully aware that his campaign is having problems. “I think he’s a very good person,” said Maria del C. Gonzalez, of Hialeah. “Maybe he needs more training. A little bit. But Obama needed training when he went to become president, you know?”
What should Rubio do now? I asked. Maria turned to her husband Frank for advice.
“Kick Trump out of here!” said Frank.
Others said they admire Rubio and want to see him win because he is one of them. They like his youth. They believe he’s a good family man. The most important thing, they said, is for Rubio to keep fighting.
“I think we have to still wait,” said Sarah Castro, of Miami. “There’s still hope. Something could happen, dramatically.”
