Another potential future leader cut down by the crazies. Rubio actually had a thing going on there, a tenuous hold, perhaps, but he was trying. Now he's toast. In the modern Republican Party you can only win by losing spectacularly: Ted Cruz fucked up royally and destroyed everything, which makes him the hero and the front-runner in GOP Bizarroland.

Cruz-Bachmann '16!

Clinton/Warren versus Cruz-Bachmann, 2016.

I like it that the GOP is taking some firm stances on real things like ACA and immigration. I am against over-immigration myself, and I can make rational cases for that stance.

I would rather this as a path to getting rid of all the hot button issues, gay-bashing and racist diatribes of the past.

However I know that GOP reform doesn't allow Democrats to attack it as easily, so I can see why you guys are scraping the barrel for something to stick it with.

As much as I disagree with him, at least McCain has guts. The Republicans are such bullying cowards these days.

@2 Clinton/Booker Warren may be too liberal for the executive branch. Great senator though.

What's happening to Rubio just goes to show that many of the people running the GOP today are such hard-core dead enders that they will literally have to die before the party can hope to reach out to hispanics.

They loved him when he was useful for "brown-washing" their photo-ops, but the second he stood up for a real plan for changing immigration, an issue critical to millions, they dropped him like a hot rock.

@3: I've yet to see you make a rational case for anything.

@3 if you like something they're doing, then awesome -- proves that they're off the deep end

Dubya and his crew proved to be utterly incompetent in every way, and yet he won reelection (with some voting irregularities, naturally). All that matters to the GOP voter base is branding. Not necessarily the way your candidate is presented, but often how the *other* candidate is presented.

I remember when all the pundits and screaming heads and political writer wannabe's though he was the future of the party. Don't remember that Rubio announced he was running for the nomination though

Did Rubio ever actually have a chance of being the President in 2016 (or beyond)? I doubt it. It's always felt like hype. There's no way he'd beat Hilary Clinton.