Not the choice one would think these two Tea Party superstars would make, is it? Ted Cruz, purportedly the ultimate Tea Party superstar, would seem to be the default choice over Rubio, the purported "establishment golden boy". But perhaps it's not as clichedly outlandish as it appears on the surface. Rubes is hardly a RINO in any conventional sense of the term; he's strayed on two issues - illegal immigration and sodomarriage - and on the former he learned enough to bow to the political realities of the need to secure the border first before any discussion of legalization can begin. That makes the Florida senator more of a Tea Party-"establishment" hybrid than a full turn to the "dark side". There's also the matter of Senator Cruz having gone completely out of his way to alienate pretty much every member of the Senate and House Republican caucuses over the past couple of years with his serial fratricidal crapola, Senate floor slander, and shutdown kamikaze runs. And there's the consideration of Rubio's greater electability to figure into the equation. The latter two criteria could be seen by Gowdy and Scott as a two-fer - maximizing the GOP's chances of victory next November and sticking it to an obnoxious pain in the ass at the same time.
How much such endorsements would be worth to Rubio's chances is debatable, but it can't hurt him in South Carolina, where he (and everybody else) are miles behind Hillary's mole. If Trump's polling is as much hat over cattle as many of us believe, his crushing Iowa defeat at Senator Cruz's hands could open up New Hampshire and then the Palmetto State as well. It's certainly worth a try.
In case there's any lingering doubt about the congressman and the senator hopping aboard Equipo Rubio, they're both doing events with him, and Gowdy is dropping hints the size of Near-Earth Objects:
[W]hile Gowdy said “I typically don’t endorse people,” and downplayed the impact of such an endorsement, he suggested his appearance on the trail with Rubio wasn’t for nothing.
“The fact that Timmy and I are here on a Saturday, in a place where neither one of us lives, probably should tell you something,” Gowdy said.
Indeed, it should. Will Tea Partiers interpret that "something" as being along the lines of, "Gowdy and Scott have sold out and are now nothing but filthy RINO turncoat cockroaches!!!!"? Near-future time will tell, I suppose, and it will be potentially highly cynically entertaining to find out. But it may just be that they give - or rather restore - the TP rub to Rubio, which is that on which he certainly seems to be counting.
Of course, the effect will be completely spoiled if Lindsey Grahamnesty endorses rightwing Dezi as well, the prospect of which the latter had also better be acutely aware and preemptive measures taken. Starting with a restraining order.
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