The Coming Battle For The Hispanic Republican Leadership: Marco Rubio Of Florida Vs. Ted Cruz Of Texas

Florida Senator Marco Rubio is gaining the spotlight next Tuesday evening, when he is commissioned by Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to deliver the Republican Party response to the State of the Union Address of President Barack Obama.

Rubio is young, good looking, charming, charismatic, and represents the Sunshine State, which sometime late in this decade will surpass New York in population and become the third largest state. In addition, it is a “swing state”, arguably the most important if the Republicans are ever to recover from their last two defeats for President, and losing the popular vote in five of the past six elections. And Rubio is clearly planning to run for President. So his response to the State of the Union Address will be crucial to his campaign to build up his image.

But as he becomes seen as the “savior” of the Republican Party, as Time Magazine terms it, he will have another Hispanic Senator, like Rubio a Cuban American, as a rival, who comes from a state much larger in population and in land area, and that is newly minted Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, second in land area to Alaska and second in population to California, and four and a half times the land area of Florida.

Cruz, just 17 months older than Rubio, clearly has his own Presidential plans in the future, and he is much more willing to be openly aggressive in his rhetoric and behavior than Rubio, who tends to be more gentlemanly by nature. Cruz is like a bull in a China shop, and does not care what anyone thinks, because he is an open Tea Party activist, while Rubio is only loosely connected to that right wing movement.

Rubio is diplomatic compared to Cruz, who is less than tactful in just a short time in the Senate, going on the offensive, not being a quiet freshman in the Senate. Cruz was born in Canada, but claims he can run for President, an issue which would have to be investigated further for its validity, particularly when Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, but has had his native citizenship questioned because his father was Kenyan. Cruz is an “in your face” type, and his arrogance is likely to cause him to have fewer friends in the Senate than Rubio.

So Cruz cannot help but wish that Rubio “falls on his face”, as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal did in delivering the response to the State of the Union Address in 2009.

The irony though is that both Rubio and Cruz represent only three percent of Hispanics, and their conservative ideology is highly unlikely to draw Mexican American support (almost two thirds of all Hispanics in America) or Puerto Rican support ( the second highest percentage among Hispanics with a little over 9 percent), something that they seem not to understand.

So it really does not matter what happens with Rubio and Cruz and their Presidential ambitions, as it is clear that the vast majority of Hispanics will continue to vote Democratic over the long haul. A sign of this is that even the Cuban American population, traditionally Republican because of Fidel Castro, is starting to move in the direction of the Democratic Party, at least among the younger generation which has no memory or experience in fleeing Communist Cuba under Castro control for the past 54 plus years!