Rubio sat down with National Review Online earlier this week to discuss his candidacy and the problems the Republican party is facing.
DAVID FREDDOSO: Charlie Crist is a popular guy in Florida. He’s also popular among Republicans. Are you Don Quixote for taking him on?
MARCO RUBIO: Elections are about choices and about giving people clear alternatives. I have strong and deeply held convictions about what the United States should be about. I have strong beliefs about what the role of the Republican party should be in the political debate in America. I don’t think that’s being reflected by our leadership at the national level. And, as a result, I want to run for the U.S. Senate, because I don’t think that the voice our party should be is being offered by the Republican party at this moment.
FREDDOSO: How are they failing?
RUBIO: Two things. There’s one group of Republicans who feel our slogan should be, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” That, in essence, it’s too hard to take on this expansion of government, this overreliance on government to grow our economy and create jobs. And so what we should do is just be more like the Democrats. Another group of Republicans believes that we should basically be the party of opposition without any ideas in return — that all we have to offer is ideology, but without any new ideas behind the ideology.
I think both sides of that debate are wrong. We are a party that should have a very clear vision about government’s role in our economy and government’s role in our country, and we should back that up with specific solutions for the future.
FREDDOSO: Tell me how Charlie Crist is part of the problem — why you’re taking him on?
RUBIO: Charlie Crist is a very pleasant man. I consider him a friend. . . . My issues with him are not personal.
I do think that Charlie Crist has proven to have more confidence in the ability of government to grow the economy than I have and than Republicans should have. The evidence of that is, he campaigned statewide with Barack Obama, not just to accept the stimulus dollars, but actually in favor of passing it. Every single Republican member of the House voted against it, and yet our governor campaigned across the state in favor of it. It was one of the worst things he could ever do to my children. He’s now permanently saddled them with trillions in debt that they will work their whole life to .
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