On Wednesday, the mainstream media spoke to actual Tea Party members rather than beltway consultants who feed them spin. Thus they finally figured out that the conservative base has soured and turned on Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for his embrace of “comprehensive immigration reform.”
Mainstream media members who attended rallies in Washington, D.C. yesterday spoke to Tea Party supporters from around the country who expressed their anger and discontent with Rubio (R-FL). Rubio’s support for amnesty has cost him dearly with the conservative base that once saw him as a rising star.
Politico reported that the Tea Party supporters jeered at Rubio. NBC’s “First Read” noted Tea Party attendees blistered Rubio at the rally. The Associated Press noted that Rubio was heavily criticized at the rally.
Erin Konkel, who traveled from Houston to attend Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) immigration press conference, told the Huffington Post, “I thought he was the real deal, but I was wrong.”
When the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector accused Rubio of not having read or understood his own bill, the crowd booed, according to the Washington Post. They yelled, “Liars! Liars!”
“The thing I find most offensive of all is Senator Rubio’s staff saying that we need to have more low-skill immigrants because American workers can’t cut it,” Rector said at the press conference.
The Hill reported the crowd booed every time Rubio’s name was mentioned. U.S. News also reported the crowd was angry Rubio worked with Sen. Chuck Schumer when he should have known better and booed whenever Rubio’s name was mentioned. A North Carolina resident told the U.S. News that the “Senate bill rewards illegal activity and it puts amnesty ahead of proper border security.”
“The majority of these immigrants are going to vote for Democrats,” he said. “People want to say Republicans are a bunch of meanies. It’s not about race, it is about the rule of law.”
Others at the rally reportedly called him a “traitor” and a “sell-out” who “got power mad.” And an attendee from Virginia said Rubio allowed himself to get “hoodwinked.”
Jane from Ohio told the Huffington Post, of Rubio, “My basic observation of Washington, D.C., is people come here and they lose their perspective of the real world in this bubble.”
It is the same bubble in which the mainstream media live. But on Wednesday, Tea Partiers from outside that bubble showed the mainstream media that their conventional wisdom about Rubio’s appeal to the conservative base may need to be reexamined.