I want to return to the subject of Marco Rubio and his family because the story carries such an important message for all of us at this time in our history.
My regular readers will recognize the name of author Larry Thornberry of Tampa. I have had the pleasure of knowing Larry for more years than either of us will admit. Among other literary pursuits, Larry is a regular contributor to The American Spectator magazine. He provides me with his articles with kind permission for me to publish them in my blogs. I enjoy his knowledge, his opinions and his writing style. So when he covers and event or topic that interests me, I publish his work in whichever of my blogs I may feel to be appropriate.
Larry introduced me to Marco Rubio, the candidate for US Senate when there was no candidacy or campaign. Marco, bright, young and articulate, was the former Speaker of the Florida House but had never campaigned for state-wide office. Marco had just announced he was running for US Senate but the popular Florida Governor announced for the same office and all the political air seemed to be sucked out of the room as the Florida Republican hierarchy and Washington power elites fell all over themselves to celebrate Governor Crist as the man most likely to keep the Senate seat of retiring Mel Martinez in the “R” column.
That was a long time ago. With limited resources and a brave and dedicated display of personal charisma, Conservative principles, endless travel and more than a year of retail politics, Marco Rubio embarrassed the Governor so badly that Crist fled the Republican Party and is an independent candidate now. Marco won the nomination of his party in the August 24 primary for the November 2 general election. But his electoral elation was tempered when his father's health took a turn for the worse about ten days ago.
I have written in numerous occasions here and elsewhere that I am very impressed with Marco Rubio as a husband, father and citizen as well as a political leader and candidate for high office. His family always was a part of his story and his public speeches. But Mario Rubio, father of Marco passed away last Saturday. I wrote a brief piece on Saturday to give recognition to Mr Mario Rubio and Oria, his wife of 61 years. Mario Rubio fled from Cuba to bring his family to America and to give them the opportunities that could be found here. I was not personally acquainted with Mr Rubio - but I can only imagine the pride he and his wife have felt in the accomplishments of their four children.
This is the sort of immigration story I want to read about. The family that comes to this country legally and through hard work and dedication they made their world better for their children. And in the process they made our world better too.
Marco's family experience also taught him the likely result of a move toward a socialist government here in America. His family lived through the breakdown of society in Cuba before he was born. He knows that we must remain vigilant in America to prevent our fate from following the path of Cuba. His is a voice that I want to hear in the United States Senate.
Larry Thornberry has written his requiem for Mario Rubio which I would like to share with you.
My Source: http://spectator.org/archives/2010/09/07/mario-rubio-rip
Not too many people outside of Miami knew the late Mario Rubio. There's no statue of him in Washington, not even in Miami. There's no college building, courthouse, or highway named after him. Perhaps there should be. He did some pretty great things under more adverse circumstances than most Americans can even imagine. Rubio died Saturday at Baptist Hospital in Miami at age 83 after what many people, but almost certainly not Mario himself, would have considered a hard life. Mario went to work at an age when others are going to elementary school. He worked into his late seventies, mostly as a bartender (a most under-appreciated vocation). Until age 32 Rubio worked in his native Cuba. But after El Jefe Maximo came down out of the mountains, stole Mario's country, and turned it into a leftist prison, Mario managed to get his family to the United States, one of his great enduring gifts to them. He worked at hard jobs that don't pay much so that his children -- he had four with his wife of 61 years, Orio -- could have better. Well, they have had better. One of those children, Marco, born after the Rubios had made it to America, has achieved a successful career as a lawyer and a politician (managing the latter without having to wear fatigues and carry an automatic weapon). Marco Rubio, former Speaker of the Florida House, is Florida's Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat. He praised his father in this way: My father knew hard work and struggle from very early in his life. His mother died when he was only nine. The day after his mother was buried he went to work with his father and did not stop working until he was 78 years old. He was by far the most unselfish person I have ever known, always focused on others, and never on his own well-being. He was especially determined to provide his children with opportunities he himself never had. My dad worked as a street vendor, security guard, apartment building manager, and crossing guard. But for most of his life he was a bartender, and by all accounts a great one. But the greatest success came from the two most important jobs he ever had: husband and father. He was very proud of my public service. And over the last 18 months he became an expert channel surfer, constantly searching for my next television interview. I was blessed to be raised by a world-class father. And I thank God for allowing my father to live long and healthy enough to see that the sacrifices he made for us were not in vain. The Rubio campaign will pause now, as the Rubio family deals with matters of more elemental importance than politics. But it won't pause long. There will be an election in less than two months -- though the heavens fall. And Marco Rubio has based his conservative campaign on protecting those things about America that allow people like his father to work miracles for their families. Mario Rubio saw left-wing bullies steal his country. And just because the current band of left-wingers in power in America don't wear fatigues and carry automatic weapons (and their own nannies won't allow them to smoke cigars), there are still plenty of parallels that Marco Rubio has drawn attention to on the campaign trail. Along with Mario Rubio's own personal qualities, it was America's long-established traditions of limited government, personal freedom, and reliance on capitalism that allowed Mario to be the success he was, and to help lift his children even higher. These are traditions under assault today. Happily, there are lots of Mario Rubios in America, some with last names that end in a vowel, others not. You've got your Smith, Washington, Koslowski, Feldman, Esposito, Chin, Hostetler, Nguyen, Many Goats, et al. They, not the political elites that strive to boss them around and take what they've earned, are what makes America the great and exceptional place it has always been, and could remain if we have the wisdom and strength to keep it that way. It's right that we pay tribute to them at a sad time for the Rubio family. RIP Mario Rubio.
Mario Rubio, RIP
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