Releasing two-page summaries of their tax returns, GOP hopefuls Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) hoped to make a big deal about GOP front-runner Donald Trump reluctance to release past return due to ongoing IRS audits. However the IRS treats Trump, the public knows the real estate tycoon is representated by the nation’s best accounting and law firms. Hurling accusation-after-accusation before Super Tuesday, Rubio and Cruz get that sinking feeling that their days are numbered in the 2016 campaign. Pounding one more nail in their campaign coffins, conservative Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) endorsed Trump today, pulling the rug out from Rubio and Cruz, accusing Trump of phony conservatism. Sessions’ conservative clout undermined the two junior senators’ arguments, giving Trump a huge boost ahead of March 1 Super Tuesday.
Putting their taxes out in public won’t have an impact on voters heading into Super Tuesday, only making the two first-term senators look desperate. “We’re putting these out today to put pressure on Trump and the other candidates to release theirs,” said Rubio spokesman Alex Conant. Rubio’s gone off the rails since the Feb. 25 CNN debate, making up stuff about Trump, telling ABC’s “Good Morning America’s” George Stephanopoulos that the real estate mogul “wet his pants,” calling him a “con artist.” Trump ripped Rubio in the debate for choking in the Feb. 9 New Hampshire debate, profusely sweating, then repeating himself like a broken record. Rubio’s sarcastic attacks on Trump following the CNN debate went abruptly out-of-character, confirming Trump’s suggestion that Florida’s junior senator has begun to crack under the growing pressure before Super Tuesday.
New reports circulated by the Rubio and Cruz campaigns call Trump a racist for failing to forcefully denounce an oblique endorsement by former KKK Grand Wizard and past Louisiana State House member David Duke. Cruz and Rubio have tried to hit Trump with everything but the kitchen sink. Calling Trump a racist for not denouncing Duke strangely parallels the same kind of abuse against former President Ronald Reagan when he ran for president. Reagan’s rivals, especially former President George H.W. Bush, accused the late president of right wing extremism, ties to white supremacist and Christian extremists groups. When Reagan swept into the White House by a landslide in 1960 against former President Jimmy Carter, it erased many of the unfounded attacks on Reagan’s character. Trump faces similar kinds of off-the-wall attacks before Super Tuesday.
Watching Trump hammered by a tag-teaming Rubio and Cruz in the CNN debate didn’t sit well with anyone other than partisans in the audience. After winning the debate by sizable margins by major online polls, former GOP candidate New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie threw his support to Trump. Backing Trump legitimizes his candidacy, something the mainstream media and Republican National Committee have refused to do. With Capitol Hill conservative icon Sessions backing Trump, it undermines Rubio and Cruz’s argument that Trump isn’t really conservative. Trump’s taken on media elites as diverse as Fox News and the New York Times, both sharing something in common: Intellectual dishonesty. Whether people like to hear it or not, Trump tells-it-like-it-is, something refreshing to disgruntled voters. Trump reminds voters that politicians are all talk and no action.
Accusing Trump of “business dealings with the mob” today, Cruz sunk to a new low, much like Rubio. In business for 40 years, Trump’s a household name, with a reputation synonymous with American business success. When Jeb went negative against Trump, responding to his allegations of “low energy,” it all backfired, eventually ending his campaign Feb. 20, the night of the South Carolina primary. Jeb rolled the dice dragging his mother Barbara and brother, former President George W. Bush, on the campaign trail. When the dust settled, South Carolina voters upended Jeb’s failing campaign. Rubio’s opposition research guy Joe Pounder sabotaged his campaign, urging Marco to go negative on Trump. Instead of winning votes, the abrupt change-in-character turned off voters, putting Rubio dangerously close to Super Tuesday’s day of reckoning.
Throwing as much mud as possible before Super Tuesday, Rubio and Cruz have essentially conceded the election. Mainstream media and the GOP establishment haven’t yet accepted that Trump is the best thing since Reagan for the Republican Party. After Bush-43 hit the GOP with a wrecking ball, bankrupting the country with two unpopular foreign wars in 2008, it gave rise to Barack Obama. Obama’s political problems now give rise to Trump’s insurgent candidacy. Republican officials should thank Trump for saving the GOP, not as an instrument of Fox News and right-wing radio but a new optimistic force for renewed American prosperity. GOP and independent voters are speaking strongly around the country that they want something new in 2016. Candidates representing the status quo of endless foreign wars and partisan gridlock have an uphill battle to the White House.
