You know, a lot of rabble-babble is going on lately trying to paint Ted Cruz as a supporter of the Gang of 8 Amnesty bill.

I’d love to say I’m surprised at this underhanded little ploy, but I’m not.

The other day, I mentioned Mitt Romney’s unprincipled 2012 “Scorched Earth” Campaigning Technique to clear the way for his nomination. The Romney campaign would smear his opponents and accuse them of being in favor of things they weren’t, weak on things that they weren’t, on the wrong side of a conservative issue when they weren’t. It was vile.

The only way Romney was able to pass himself off as a conservative (which he most stringently isn’t) was to portray his opponents of being less conservative than they claimed to be.

And now we’re seeing Marco Rubio do the same thing.

I confess, there are things I like about Marco. That may piss some of you off, but that’s my feeling. I think Marco has the ability to be a smart, hopeful, energized candidate in this primary process. But the problem is, with Jeb Bush tanking, the same political operatives that aided Romney in his scorched earth strategy have bailed on Jeb like rats fleeing a sinking ship and instead have glommed on to Rubio — bringing with them all the despicable, vile and underhanded “anything to win” campaign tactics they had planned on using with Jeb.

As a result, the Rubio campaign isn’t so much being led by the candidate as the candidate is being led by his campaign people.

The one thing you can say unequivocally about both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, is they really are leading their campaigns. Not only are they the face of their candidacies, they are the heart and soul of them as well. I think this is a large part of their appeal. They don’t come off as being “handled” by campaign operatives. Jeb does. Romney did.

And now Marco does. The heartless and soulless element of his campaign springs from these cynical, “anything to win” operatives who are frankly unprincipled men with little interest in anything outside of winning at any cost.

When Rubio began to take some slight steps to distance himself away from the Gang of 8 legislation this past summer, I thought, “Well, maybe Marco realizes he was used. Used by Chuck Schumer. Used by McCain. Maybe Marco has learned not to be used by others.”

And this latest campaign tactic leads me to believe he hasn’t learned a damn thing. He is still being used. More to the point, he is letting himself be used. This makes me question his ability to actually lead as President and Commander-in-Chief.

Back on April 14, after Marco initially announced his run for the Republican nomination, I wrote that it wasn’t Marco’s lack of time in Washington that gave me pause (after all, Abraham Lincoln was a 1-term Congressman). And length of time in Washington tends to turn smart politicians into back-stabbing turncoats.

I added:

No, my nervousness about Rubio isn’t his age or “experience.” My nervousness is how quickly he abandoned the principles that won him his seat.
 
Rubio was elected primarily through the hard work of the Tea Party movement. In the primary, he defeated the Establishment Republican choice (Charlie Crist), and won his Senate seat handily in the general election.
 
Then, he tossed that to the wind and signed on with the Amnesty “Gang of Eight.”
 
I have a serious problem with that.
 
If Rubio can turn his back on the very principles that secured him his Senate seat, doesn’t that make your spider senses tingle just a bit?
 
Don’t get me wrong. His speech last night was aces.
 
But great speech-making doesn’t a great president make.
 
Case in point, Barack “I have a gift” Obama.
 
As Ted Cruz has been saying, don’t tell me you are opposed to Obama’s executive amnesty, show me. Show me where you’ve fought against what Obama has done.
 
But Rubio didn’t fight against it. He signed on to it. Not only did he sign on to it, he was the face of the Gang of Eight bill.

I was willing to give Marco the benefit of the doubt and to see if he could prove that he had learned from his mistakes and was stronger for it.

But aligning himself with a cadre of unprincipled party hacks who will not hesitate to obliterate Marco’s competition by hook or by crook leads me to suspect that he hasn’t.

And the Republicans in Congress abandoning the very principles of the party and happily aligning themselves with Obama’s agenda in advancing this trillion dollar Omnibus spending bill shows me that if we do not elect a principled Conservative — a man willing to stand up to the corruption in Washington — and instead, elect a man who tosses his principles in the toilet in order to get elected by any means necessary, this destruction of our Republic will continue apace for the next four years.

Never forget it.

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