Surviving a sip of water on national TV was a good start for Rubio
Marco Rubio, who just barely managed to survive taking a sip of water on national television earlier this year,
faces a new question: Can his 2016 ambitions survive the conservative backlash to his support for immigration reform?
To idiot-morans like Sarah Palin, the answer is simple: No way!
Former GOP vice presidential nominee and Tea Party figurehead Sarah Palin suggested Rubio should face a primary challenge going forward.
"Every politician should be held accountable for breaking their campaign promises," Palin said on Fox News Radio this week. "They turned their back on the American public, so why should they not be held accountable?"
Of course, her existence on the national stage actually proves that Rubio will be just fine, or at least that supporting a humane immigration policy won't be his undoing, because Palin owes her career to John McCain, who entered the 2008 presidential campaign as a supporter of immigration reform.
Sure, McCain temporarily flip-flopped, but Republican primary voters didn't hold his past "sin" against him, because as long as a candidate is willing to pander to the right, Republican primary voters are willing to reward him. Take the example of Mitt Romney: He invented Obamacare, but all he had to do to win the GOP nomination was flip-flop on it, along with every other not-insane policy position he'd ever taken.
Ultimately, McCain and Romney survived their positions on immigration and health care by flip-flopping and moving to the right on a range of issues. It worked for them—in terms of getting their party's nomination. Of course that move to the right ended up hurting them in their general elections. If Rubio runs for president and wins the GOP nomination in 2016, the same dynamic will likely play out for him.