That Giant Flushing Sound...

[Lord Jim]

Is the sound of the Rubio campaign heading down the toilet:

Less than a week until the first winner-take-all Republican primaries, Donald Trump is trouncing Marco Rubio on his home turf, according to a new Fox News poll.

In the race for the Republican nomination, Trump receives 43 percent among Florida likely GOP primary voters. Rubio is a distant second with 20 percent, closely followed by Ted Cruz at 16 percent. John Kasich comes in fourth with 10 percent.

Here is what’s driving the vote: a 63-percent majority of likely Republican primary voters feels “betrayed” by politicians in their party -- and they go heavily for Trump over Cruz (49-18 percent), with Rubio and Kasich way behind (12 percent and 11 percent respectively).


In addition, just 48 percent of Sunshine State GOPers approve of the job Rubio is doing as senator, while 38 percent disapprove. Among voters who approve of his performance, Rubio bests Trump by 12 points, yet he trails the Donald by a whopping 62 points among those who disapprove.

Cruz (21 percent) and Rubio (20 percent) are the favorites when voters are asked about their second-choice candidate. Kasich is the second choice of 17 percent, while only eight percent pick Trump as their backup.

Trump’s lead is not based on his views on illegal immigration. Fifty-six percent of Republican voters support setting up a system for illegal immigrants to become legal residents, while only 33 percent favor the real estate mogul’s position of deporting as many as possible. Trump is ahead by 40 points over his closest competitor (Cruz) among those favoring deportation -- and he even edges Rubio by three points among those wanting to find a legal path.

The Fox News Poll is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R). The poll was conducted March 5-8, 2016 by telephone (landline and cellphone) with live interviewers among 813 Florida likely Republican primary voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Respondents were randomly selected from a statewide voter file of all registered Republicans and screened for their likelihood of participating in the GOP primary.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03 ... orida.html

On the other hand, things are lookin' up for John Boy:

Ohio Governor John Kasich bests Donald Trump among Buckeye Republicans by a 34 to 29 percent margin. Ted Cruz is third with 19 percent. Marco Rubio trails with just 7 percent.

That’s according to a new Fox News poll of Ohio likely Republican primary voters. The governor’s edge is within the poll’s margin of sampling error.

Kasich is bolstered by positive evaluations of his job performance as governor. He has a sky high 79 percent approval rating among the Ohio party faithful.

Even so, nearly one quarter of Kasich supporters say they could end up voting for another candidate (23 percent). For Trump supporters, 19 percent say they may change their mind.

Who would they pick? Kasich (21 percent) and Rubio (19 percent) top the “second-choice” list, with Cruz close behind (17 percent). Trump is the second choice for only 12 percent.

Nearly half of Ohio GOP voters are evangelical Christians, and they prefer Kasich over Trump and Cruz (32-27-23 percent). Home-state preference seems to be at work: Fox News exit polls of 2016 Republican contests held so far have found either Cruz or Trump always winning the evangelical bloc.

Kasich is up by just one point over Trump among white Catholics (35-34 percent).

About 4 in 10 GOP primary voters describe themselves as “very” conservative, and they pick Cruz over Trump and Kasich (32-28-27 percent).

There’s a substantial gender gap. Men go for Kasich over Trump by just one point (33-32 percent), while women pick the governor over the Donald by 10 (35-25 percent).

There are also divisions by education, with Kasich winning among those with a college degree (+15 points), and Trump ahead among those without a degree (+4 points).

Some 26 percent of Ohio Republicans say they would “refuse” to vote for Trump over the Democrat in November, while just six percent say the same of Kasich.

Thirty-nine percent of Kasich supporters say they would refuse to vote for Trump in November. That’s about four times as many the number of Trump backers who say they would stay home if Kasich is the GOP nominee (10 percent).

The Fox News Poll is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R). The poll was conducted March 5-8, 2016 by telephone (landline and cellphone) with live interviewers among 806 Ohio likely Republican primary voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Respondents were randomly selected from a statewide voter file of Republicans and unaffiliated voters who identified themselves as likely to vote in the GOP primary.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03 ... -ohio.html

[Lord Jim]

Rubio Is Speaking To A Nearly Empty Florida Stadium



Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) drew a “disappointing” crowd for an event in his home state Wednesday night just days before a critical primary in the state, CNN reported.

CNN’s Jason Carroll, who was on the ground in Hialeah, Florida, called the crowd “much, much smaller” than at Rubio’s past events and said the “couple hundred” supporters gathered were “not even filling the end zone” of the high school football stadium.

“This is Marco Rubio's home turf,” Carroll reminded viewers.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/c ... ty-stadium

A far cry from the 5-10 thousand person crowds he was getting for a couple of weeks...

[kmccune]

Of course the republicans want the cheap labor ,I dont think any of the current front runners will be good for Joe Average

[Long Run]

Definitely weird how the air went out of his balloon. He is definitely talented and has appeal, but either it's not his year or he just isn't ready. Hopefully, this run doesn't hurt his long term prospects.

[Crackpot]

I think it was the dick measuring at the debate. It's one thing to beat Drumpf at his level it's another to manage to dive lower.

[MajGenl.Meade]

You mean he muffed it?

[RayThom]

One thing for sure, Rubio will have the most elegant spin as to why he came in 3rd or 4th place in his home state.

Some day (?) this guy may make a good politician.

[rubato]

Cruz finished him off when he opened several new offices in Florida ensuring no one could catch Drumpf.


yrs,
rubato

[Joe Guy]

It looks like Little Marco's days are numbered.

[Lord Jim]

I think it was the dick measuring at the debate. It's one thing to beat Drumpf at his level it's another to manage to dive lower.

Rubio himself has admitted that he went too far in the personal insult tit-for-tat....

He should have stuck to the substantive attacks about Trump's hypocrisy, lack of knowledge, damage he's done to working Americans, policy shifts etc...

Acting like a juvenile, crude oaf for some bizarre reason seems to work for Drumpf, but it wasn't a good look on Rubio. The Dumpster himself yesterday in an interview yesterday with Anderson Cooper that Rubio didn't look natural in that role.

He's right about that; being a coarse vulgarian is second nature to him; it's who he truly is...(for the life of me, I absolutely don't understand how that could be appealing to anyone over the age of 14, but then I don't get the popularity of pro wrestling either...) but it didn't work for somebody who really would have preferred not to be doing it...

Specific to Florida, he's made other mistakes. For example, I heard a report this morning that he didn't even open campaign offices in the state till a month ago, (Trump's people have had a presence in Florida since last summer.) Maybe he took the state for granted, but if that's the case there is not much excuse for it, given the fact that polls have shown both him and Bush trailing Trump badly for many months. He should have been well aware of the danger here.

[liberty]

Of course the republicans want the cheap labor ,I dont think any of the current front runners will be good for Joe Average

I agree no one seems to care. And Clinton’s husbands signed NAFTA and started the economic decline of this country. My mother worked for GM on the factory floor and now she has a very good retirement that would be the envy of her neighbors if they knew how well off she is. There was a time that a person could work in factory making a good living, have a good retirement, buy a home and a place on the lake and send their kids to college, but those jobs are mostly gone now. The factories are in Mexico and who was the co-president that helped make that possible?

[rubato]

Of course the republicans want the cheap labor ,I dont think any of the current front runners will be good for Joe Average

I agree no one seems to care. And Clinton’s husbands signed NAFTA [and engineered the longest and largest economic expansion in our history in which all 5 income brackets rose together] ... "

fixed

yrs,
rubato

[Long Run]

And Clinton’s husbands signed NAFTA and started the economic decline of this country. My mother worked for GM on the factory floor and now she has a very good retirement that would be the envy of her neighbors if they knew how well off she is. There was a time that a person could work in factory making a good living, have a good retirement, buy a home and a place on the lake and send their kids to college, but those jobs are mostly gone now. The factories are in Mexico and who was the co-president that helped make that possible?

This is a myth being sold by both Sanders and Trump. There are still many good manufacturing jobs in America, they just left Detroit and they left long before NAFTA. Further, this "golden era" of U.S. factory jobs paying so well was a historical aberration mostly due to the decimation of the first world by WWII.

Bernie Sanders' Free Trade Mythology
By Steve Chapman
March 10, 2016

Bernie Sanders' upset victory in Michigan came just two days after he stood on the debate stage in the perennially beleaguered city of Flint, Michigan, and decried the economic condition of the surrounding area. He put the blame where he, like Donald Trump, often puts it: on free trade.

* * *

Michigan has seen more than its share of economic trouble, but the senator from Vermont is not the guy to explain it. The decline he lamented and the causes he cited didn't come close to coinciding. Many vacant buildings in the Motor City were vacant when Clinton was practicing law in Little Rock.

Michael Moore's documentary film "Roger & Me," about the calamitous shutdown of General Motors plants in Flint, came out in 1989 -- more than four years before the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect and long before China exported much of anything. Detroit lost more than a third of its population between 1960 and 1990.

A generation ago, the auto industry was competing not with companies in Mexico or China but with those in Japan. Toyota, Honda and other Japanese companies took sales away from the Big Three, particularly after the energy crisis of the 1970s, by offering cars that were more reliable and fuel-efficient. [GM and the other American automakers, along with the UAW got fat, dumb and lazy when the U.S. had the only intact major economy after WWII, and had little competition through the 50's and 60's, then saw their oligopoly evaporate during the 70's as Japan and other countries kicked their butts.]

They won over American consumers at a time when trade was far from free. President Ronald Reagan protected U.S. automakers by forcing "voluntary" limits on Japanese auto sales. Japanese trucks faced a 25 percent import duty -- which is still in effect.

The other changes that hurt the Michigan auto industry were not the product of trade agreements. One was the migration of production to other states, particularly those with right-to-work laws that impeded the powerful United Auto Workers union. Today most U.S. factories operated by Ford and General Motors are located outside of Michigan -- as is every plant operated by foreign automakers.

The other change came in the form of automation. Many of the jobs that have vanished in American car factories haven't moved abroad; they've gone to robots and other labor-saving machinery. Since 2000, when domestic auto employment peaked, the number of workers required to produce a given number of vehicles has fallen by more than one-third.

Breaking down trade barriers would actually help the American auto industry and those on the assembly lines. One major attraction of building cars in Mexico is that it has free trade agreements with 45 countries -- while the U.S. has free trade deals with just 20. Exporting to most of the world is easier there than here.

Bernard Swiecki, an analyst at the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research, told Business Alabama why Audi recently decided to put a factory in Mexico instead of the U.S.: "If they export it, they save $4,500 per vehicle in tariffs they don't have to pay."

Sanders said Sunday that American workers shouldn't have to compete with "people in Mexico making 25 cents an hour." He's greatly exaggerating. U.S. automakers there pay $8 to $10 an hour.

That's a lot less than American autoworkers earn, but the wage gap doesn't matter as much as you might think. U.S. plants still roll out three times as many cars and trucks as their Mexican counterparts.

Sanders falls in a long tradition of trying to wall our economy off from the world. The AFL-CIO opposed the 1987 free trade agreement with Canada. The Vermont socialist would deny American consumers the better products and lower prices that such accords provide.

Those benefits are especially important to people of limited means, who spend a disproportionate share of their income on necessities. Yet many of these people have cast their ballots for Sanders and Trump.

If Michiganders went to Wal-Mart or Home Depot tomorrow and found the shelves stripped of everything made abroad, they would quickly grasp the upside of free trade. If either of the people they chose for president gets to the White House, that realization may come, but too late.

[BoSoxGal]

I think this is SO sad; out of the three of them Rubio seems a much, much better candidate in terms of substance than either Trump or Cruz. As LJ has said before, if this race weren't crazy, it would be Rubio, Jeb! and Linsday Graham left in the running now - and Kasich.

If I was a Republican I'd be out of my mind with frustration over what is happening in this primary process.

[Sue U]

If I was a Republican I'd be out of my mind with frustration over what is happening in this primary process.

Yeah, but as a non-Republican, I just can't seem to keep enough popcorn in stock.

[RayThom]

I think this is SO sad... Rubio seems a much, much better candidate in terms of substance...

Substance? This is politics, substance has nothing to do with it.

As Billy Crystal's Nando used to say, "don't be a schnook. It's not how you feel. It's how you look."

[wesw]

Rubio is a studio creation. produced under the Republican label. created for your viewing pleasure.

he is the political equivalent of a boy band.

he was a 'zero hit' wonder

[Joe Guy]

[Big RR]

Rubio is a studio creation

and Trump isn't?

[Lord Jim]

There's something funny about the polling in Florida...

Since the second of March, there have been eleven polls conducted...

Four of them have Trump leading Rubio by nine points or less (including the most recent that has it the closest, with Trump leading by six) and five polls, where Trump leads by 19 or more, (including the second most recent poll)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -3555.html

This isn't a situation where there's one poll that's an outlier one way or the other; there have got be some very different methodologies and models being used, for there to be so many vastly different results being obtained...

There's a whole group of polling organizations that have really got the wrong end of the stick one way or the other here; next week we'll find out which ones...