Hey, Marco. We gotta talk.
We know, you're busy listening to Coldplay or some other suburban gringo music that you profess to love.
But this is serious. You've been making a lot of noise lately -- on gun control, on immigration, on the IRS -- and it's making our heads hurt. We'd just like you to stop. And, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning, you're embarrassing yourself.
First, let's talk immigration. Marco, you've bloviated for many hours on the issue of immigration as the U.S. Senate leader of the so-called Gang of Eight. (How many gangs of old white men must one institution create?)
But you don't know where you stand on anything. You won't even hang with the rest of the gang anymore. Initially, you supported a pathway to citizenship. But then you were against calling it a "pathway to citizenship." Now you say the gang's immigration bill must either enforce tighter border security -- or you'll take your ball and go home.
Some voters say such political posturing is too much. The Quinnipiac numbers say 41 percent of voters disapprove of the way you've handled immigration, while only 33 percent approve.
Next comes gun control. You recently voted against expanding background checks for gun purchases -- the most tepid of all proposed gun-control measures.
And all the voters said:
Specifically, according to the poll, one-half of all voters think "less favorably" of you because of this position -- while only 10 percent agree.
And even if 51 percent of all voters still approve of the job you're doing, Peter Brown, assistant director of the polling center, could only shake his head.
"A mark of an able politician is one who can keep his support among the electorate even when that politician follows his own path rather than the public's preference on a high-profile issue like immigration or gun control," Brown chided. "As perhaps the best-known Hispanic-American in national politics, Rubio has a tightrope to walk between keeping the folks back home happy and serving as a high-profile symbol for the GOP nationally."
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