Don Juan de Marco Rubio

Every chap in politics from Tea Party Republicans to even Chris Matthews has had a man-crush on Marco Rubio from the day he was named the Republican nominee for Florida's Class 3 Senate seat in 2010. Rubio won that election, of course, and he's now the darling of the Republican Party for his youth, his charisma, and his commitment to conservative principles. He's seen as the future not only of the Republican Party but of the country because of his Hispanic background and his popularity among Florida voters. The fact that he doesn't support the Violence Against Women Act, or that he helped Florida GOP governor Rick Scott - whom he carried to office on his coattails in Scott's race against Democrat Alex Sink - try to suppress the black vote in that state, doesn't seem to matter in explaining how Rubio can reach out beyond the party's base.

Nevertheless, he delivered the official Republican response to President Obama's State Of the Union address. But while Obama laid out specific goals for his second term - universal pre-kindergarten education, raising the federal minimum wage to nine dollars an hour, more public works projects - Rubio offered up the same general GOP bromides of limited government and low taxes. While Obama called for action on gun control, Rubio talked about ending mass shootings without admitting that maybe guns themselves are part of the problem. And, as we all know, he stopped to take a drink of water during his non-speech, presumably to make his own bromides go down better. It makes sense that he was thirsty for water delivering the positions of a party thirsty for ideas.

But hey, he's a rising political star, a 2016 presidential possibility. Heck, he has that same Latin suaveness Cesar Romero and Desi Arnaz had. Even if millions of people are making fun of him, that only shows how popular he is. Rubio will only be politically dead if people stop talking about him and stop caring about him.

Just like Alex Sink.

(Oh yeah, Ted Nugent at the State Of the Union address . . . much ado about nothing. After all, the rock and roll veteran is associated with a cultural movement dominated by white men and threatened with extinction by the influence of the growing non-European ethnic population. He's associated with the Republican Party as well. :-p )