Marco Rubio photo

Rubio Campaign Press Release - Marco Rubio Unloads on Ted Cruz: Don't Campaign as a Consistent Conservative When You've Really Just Been Consistently Calculating

January 15, 2016

rubio_011516_ffsite

This morning on Fox and Friends, Marco laid out the sharpest contrast he drew with Ted Cruz — the way the senator's record of political calculation contrasts with the way he portrays himself as a consistent conservative.

Here's Marco's key point:

I like Ted, we're friends. But he campaigns as a consistent conservative, and basically says he's the only consistent conservative on the stage.

That is not his record.

Then, Marco went on to lay out the wrinkles in Cruz's record:

He has flipped his position on birthright citizenship, on legalization of illegal immigrants. He wanted a 500% increase in guest workers. He wanted a doubling of the number of green cards. He did change his position on [Trade Promotion Authority] — he wrote an article with Paul Ryan, before Paul Ryan was speaker, praising TPA.

He used to lobby members to support TPA, and then four months later all of a sudden he flips on it. And we saw him flip his vote on crop insurance on the Senate floor. I mean I was standing right there. And then last week, he [flip-flopped on] ethanol again in iowa.

So my point is, the only thing consistent is the consistent political calculation that I'm going to change my position if it helps me politically in a given moment.

And so don't run as a consistent conservative if, in fact, you have consistently calculated your positions. That's what he's done. Again, it came up because he launched into an attack. and so i responded with his record — not with an oppo dump, with his record.

Read more about Cruz's shifting positions here.

Marco Rubio, Rubio Campaign Press Release - Marco Rubio Unloads on Ted Cruz: Don't Campaign as a Consistent Conservative When You've Really Just Been Consistently Calculating Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/326050

Simple Search of Our Archives