Marco Rubio was born in Miami to Cuban-born parents, became the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida House, and he takes a hard line on U.S. policy toward Havana. Rubio leads Gov. Charlie Crist by approximately 28 percentage points in the race for the GOP Senate nomination, and in a matchup with Rep. Kendrick Meek, the presumptive Democratic nominee, he wins by 5 points.
So with Marco Rubio poised to become the nation’s third Cuban-American senator, why haven’t the rainmakers in Florida’s Cuban-American donor community rallied to his side?
His challenges begin with the US-Cuba Democracy PAC. The Florida-based lobbying group is prolific, contributing more than $760,000 to congressional candidates in 2008. In this cycle, it had donated $225,000 to 111 House and Senate candidates across the political spectrum as of Feb. 21, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Rubio is not one of them.
Instead, the PAC has thrown in its lot with Meek, already having given him $7,500 — more than any other Senate candidate and as much as it gave Reps. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Albio Sires, D-N.J., the top House recipients.
Mauricio Claver-Carone, the director for US-Cuba Democracy PAC’s Washington operations, stressed that the committee has nothing against Rubio. At a December panel discussion hosted by the committee, Rubio, Crist and Meek all toed the same anti-Castro line, he noted. So then why Meek? Full story here.
