MIAMI — Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a son of Cuban immigrants who is serving just his fourth year in the Senate, launched his presidential campaign on Monday night by declaring himself the leader best-suited to lead the country into what he called “the new American century.”
He scorned former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who launched her Democratic presidential campaign on Sunday, as “a leader from yesterday” who is “promising to take us back to yesterday.”
“Yesterday is over. We are never going back,” Rubio told a supportive crowd at the iconic Freedom Tower, a personally resonant landmark where the federal government once processed Cuban immigrants fleeing Fidel Castro’s regime.
With his young family by his side, Rubio, 43, cast himself as a youthful, insurgent alternative to Clinton, 67, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush, 62, a close friend and mentor of Rubio’s who is also preparing to run for president, though he did not mention either political rival by name.
“Before us now is the opportunity to author the greatest chapter yet in the amazing story of America,” he told hundreds of supporters packed inside the tower. “We can’t do that by going back to the leaders and ideas of the past. We must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them.”
“In many countries, the highest office in the land is reserved for the rich and powerful,” he added later. “But I live in an exceptional country where even the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same dreams and the same future as those who come from power and privilege.”
A TIME-TESTED STRATEGY
Rubio’s strategy mirrors his successful push for the Senate in 2010, when he came from far behind to win a divisive GOP primary and a three-way general-election race with the backing of tea-party-inspired voters. In the year ahead, he faces tall odds similar to those he overcame when he ran at age 26 for local office and later for the state legislature – as well as a bruising battle with Bush, who is raising tens of millions of dollars and leads Rubio in polls in Florida and in early-voting primary and caucus states.
Undeterred by months of pressure to skip a run this time, Rubio pressed ahead on Monday: “I have heard some suggest that I should step aside and wait my turn. But I cannot. Because I believe our very identity as an exceptional nation is at stake and that I can make a difference as president.”
Monday’s announcement was expected to help vault Rubio into the top tier of Republican contenders. In recent weeks, Rubio has done little campaigning, focusing instead on holding discreet fundraisers in New York, California, Texas, Illinois and Washington while consulting his family and close circle of advisers ahead of a formal launch.
In the immediate future, Rubio plans to attend to his Senate duties: On Tuesday, he’ll return to Capitol Hill and attend a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to review legislation that would impose stiffer sanctions on Iran, and on Wednesday he is scheduled to attend a tax reform event. But he’ll turn to the campaign trail Thursday, stopping in New York and Boston for fundraisers before visiting New Hampshire on Friday.
In the coming weeks, aides said he expected to also visit Iowa, where his previous support for bipartisan immigration reform makes him a less popular choice; and South Carolina, a state where he enjoys broader support that is also home for many of his top advisers. Donors said Monday that he is also planning to visit Texas soon.
YOUNG AND RESTLESS
Like Cruz and Paul, Rubio is a first-term senator and part of a new generation of tea party-backed lawmakers who’ve come to Congress in recent years. On Monday, Cruz welcomed Rubio to the presidential race, saying that “We’re both the sons of immigrants who escaped Cuba to build a better life in the United States.”
Rubio’s announcement resonated with elderly Cuban-Americans who attended Monday night’s event, some donning military gear they first wore as part of operations to overthrow the Castro regime in the 1960s.
“There’s incredible pride that us homegrown, lower-class people have been able to produce the kind of man that this guy is,” said Frank Carrillo, 65, an attorney.
Rubio enters the race with a clear financial disadvantage. Bush has been traveling the country collecting tens of millions of dollars from top-dollar donors.
Rubio hopes to raise at least $50 million by the time the early primaries begin next year, according to associates. Last week, some supporters also launched a super PAC, called Conservative Solutions, to back his campaign. Rubio has cultivated his own national donor network that includes several wealthy backers, including veteran Republican financier Wayne Berman and Norman Braman, a wealthy Miami-area car dealer who has said he may pledge as much as $10 million to Rubio’s campaign, the new super PAC, or both.
POLITICS AND PERSONAL
On the campaign trail, as he did on Monday evening, Rubio is expected to emphasize his emotional personal story to spellbind audiences and build his campaign.
He was born May 28, 1971, in Miami. During his political rise, he characterized his parents as exiles forced to leave Cuba after Fidel Castro took power. In 2011, Rubio was forced to change his official Senate website biography after the St. Petersburg Times and The Washington Post reported that Mario and Oriales Rubio had actually emigrated more than 21/2 years before Castro took power. Rubio said he’d mistakenly relied on “family lore,” but his explanation fell flat with some critics who considered it implausible.
His parents struggled to provide for their four children – his father tended bar; his mother worked as a hotel maid and stocked shelves at a department store. In the late 1970s, the family left Miami for Las Vegas.
But the family returned to Miami in the mid-1980s, settling in the heavily Cuban-American, inland suburban city of West Miami. Rubio still lives in West Miami with his wife, Jeanette, and their four children.
At the age of 26, Rubio was elected as a West Miami city commissioner, the first victory in an undefeated streak that includes a nine-year stint in the Florida Legislature and an upset win in the 2010 U.S. Senate race against former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.
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