In Florida, the
Sun Sentinel has published an excoriating editorial
calling on Sen. Marco Rubio to resign.
Rubio has missed more votes than any other senator this year. His seat is regularly empty for floor votes, committee meetings and intelligence briefings. He says he's MIA from his J-O-B because he finds it frustrating and wants to be president, instead. [...]
Sorry, senator, but Floridians sent you to Washington to do a job. We've got serious problems with clogged highways, eroding beaches, flat Social Security checks and people who want to shut down the government.
If you hate your job, senator, follow the honorable lead of House Speaker John Boehner and resign it.
If you've been wondering what Sen. Marco Rubio has been up to, after having to abandon his proposals for immigration reform in the face of open rebellion by House Republicans, you're not alone. He has missed more votes than
any other senator. He's also been skipping key meetings involving
Iran nuclear talks and briefings on the United States campaign against ISIS. Before he turned up for a vote last week, he had been absent from Senate votes
for nearly a month; he celebrated his return
with an angry speech demanding that federal workers who "aren't doing their job" be fired.
None of this has been lost on the other campaigns, who have been ramping up their attacks on Rubio; by the press, which continues to ask Rubio about his absences; or by the Sun Sentinel.
You are paid $174,000 per year to represent us, to fight for us, to solve our problems. Plus you take a $10,000 federal subsidy — declined by some in the Senate — to participate in one of the Obamacare health plans, though you are a big critic of Obamacare.
You are ripping us off, senator.
Rubio has already been struggling to break out of the single-digit poll numbers that have dogged him and almost every other Republican candidate, but he may not particularly care about what Florida voters think about the job he's doing as senator: He's not running for re-election, and will be leaving the body after the 2016 elections whether he wins the presidency or his campaign implodes next week. He may be happy to just cash these last two years worth of federal checks and drift off to his next job no matter what the papers are writing about him.
It doesn't bode well for the job he'd do as president, mind you, but I don't think any of us, Rubio included, expect he'll end up there.