Questions for Marc Thiessen about Marco Rubio (Washington Post, American Enterprise Institute)

Marc Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute writes a column for the Washington Post and this week he offers "The Great Whisperer" (link) about a supposed whispering campaign against Marco Rubio.

In the column he says the following; questions based on this are below:

Rubio could help deliver the key swing state of Florida, and as the first Hispanic vice presidential nominee he would give the (Mitt Romney) team a fighting chance with Latino voters. His humble roots and compelling personal narrative could help blunt the class warfare attacks President Obama will surely level at Romney this fall. Rubio is telegenic and a dynamic speaker who can fire up crowds and generate desperately needed enthusiasm for the GOP ticket. He is beloved by the Tea Party, and he could help Romney win over the conservative grassroots (who are still wary of an “Etch a Sketch” nominee). In short, if you were to design the perfect running mate for Romney, you would come up with Marco Rubio... At a time when Republicans are fielding their weakest roster of presidential contenders in a generation, Rubio stands in the wings as the GOP’s star prospect - a charismatic, talented, optimistic conservative, uniquely positioned to appeal to the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country. If selected for vice president, he could help put Romney over the top - and he would be positioned as first in line for the GOP nomination the next time around. This means that the left will use any pretext to damage or destroy him...

1. Perhaps Marc Thiessen could explain why Mexican-Americans - the majority of Hispanics - would fell compelled to vote for a Cuban-American like Rubio. Aren't there huge differences in their experiences and outlooks? What exactly does Rubio have in common with, say, Antonio Villaraigosa or Dolores Huerta?

2. Rubio has more than made up for his "humble roots" by supporting economic policies that would help the very rich at the expense of everyone else, and Mitt Romney's policies are similar. Portraying Romney as a fat cat would just be an ad hominem attack; isn't the deeper problem that the GOP is little more than an MLM scheme for the very rich?

3. If Rubio is "beloved by the Tea Party", that's yet another indictment of the Tea Parties: they'd be supporting someone who's bad on immigration and cultural issues. Isn't that stupid of them?

4. The last link discusses the start of a campaign to portray Rubio as a "coconut": brown on the outside, white on the inside. How would you deal with that?

5. If Romney doesn't have a "fighting chance" with Hispanics now, whose fault is that? Romney (currently) supports perfectly reasonable, pro-American immigration policies (even if he isn't shouting about it from the rooftops). If Hispanics don't like, for instance, his partial opposition to the anti-American DREAM Act, doesn't that indicate a problem that those Hispanics have? If a large group in one ethnic group wants to aid foreign citizens at the expense of U.S. citizens with the DREAM Act, doesn't that indicate a problem that those in that group? Various entities (far-left groups, the establishment media) have been conducting a campaign to drive Hispanics from Romney and to weaken Romney's immigration position. It would seem to be in the interests of the GOP and the Romney campaign to mount a counter-attack, yet they haven't. They can't even respond to incredibly weak, easily discredited posts at the Obama campaign site keepinggophonest.com. Doesn't that indicate a problem?

6. The last line seems to suggest that you consider yourself in opposition to the left. If so, why are you acting just like them? Why do you support pan-Hispanic sentiment, where all Mexican-Americans join in solidarity with all Cuban-Americans under the Hispanic banner? Exactly how conservative is that? Why do you support giving in to race-based voting sentiments? Is that conservative? If you're going to do that, won't the Democrats always be able to undercut the GOP? That is, the Democrats will always be able to field a Hispanic who's more echt than the Hispanics the GOP fields? Aren't you hurting the GOP by enabling concepts that the Democrats will be able to use against the GOP? If you're going to support vote-your-race, why not do it for white people too? There are more whites than Hispanics, so wouldn't a white VP nominee who has the same race-based appeal to whites as you think Rubio does for Hispanics generate more votes for the GOP?

I'll tweet this to @marcthiessen and update this post if I get a response.