Marco under the microscope

Now that Marco Rubio is up in third place in some polls -- and the top pick in the market-related prediction sites -- he's beginning to get the kind of media scrutiny we expect to give our front-runners.

So far, in debates with moderators who do not do follow-up questions, he's been able to fend off troubling questions about his personal finances.    And he's verbally adroit enough to dodge questions -- and he winds up being dubbed the "debate winner."

But the scrutiny is going to get worse;  and, like this mild gaffe last week, he's going to stumble.   In New Hampshire, he was asked which non-political public figure he would like to have a beer with.

His answer:   Malala -- as in  Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for her advocacy of education for girls.   She made a remarkable recovery, was award the Nobel Peace Prize, and is now a student living in England.   A documentary film about her life has been in the theaters recently.

Well, that's a really good choice, Marco -- except for two insensitive factors.   Malala is a practicing Muslim;   they do not drink alcohol.  And Malala is a teenager and not legally allowed to drink.

So next time, Marco, you should say:   "I would love to sit down and chat with that remarkable young woman, Malala -- but we would have something other than a beer to drink."    That would have been terrific.

But will anyone really care about this?    Or about his personal finances years ago?   Not if he is the best compromise choice between establishment Republicans and angry right wingers.

Ralph

PS:   Ted Cruz has suddenly decided its time for him to try to take down Rubio, so he's begun hammering him about his changed stance on immigration.     Rubio was one of the "Gang of Eight," a bipartisan senate group that crafted an immigration reform bill that did pass the senate.    But then Rubio disassociated himself from the bill and from its provisions for a pathway to citizenship when it became politically unpopular in the Republican Party.   Of course, Cruz has his own problem on immigration -- the video of him years ago supporting legal status for immigrants that he now denounces as "amnesty."

It's interesting to watch these two sons of Cuban immigrants initially support sensible reform and then, in order to be politically viable in the 2015 Republican primary, reverse those stances.