The energy inside of Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center during the Democratic presidential nominee's official address to the nation seemed to be overwhelmingly positive. The thousands of balloons didn't hurt the mood either. But, as always, there were some haters. For example, Marco Rubio's reaction to Hillary Clinton's speech from the Democratic National Convention might as well have been spoken by Donald Trump himself. When it comes down to it, it just didn't make a lot of sense.
While others were ranting and raving over how Clinton was creating "herstory," Rubio was bitterly pointing out the "boos and catcalls from Sanders supporters." If the Florida senator was trying to accuse the Democratic Party of lacking unity — and to be fair, it's not completely united — he did so in a really strange way. For one, the GOP doesn't really have room to speak on this topic. It nominated a man who's changing the trajectory of the GOP and driving a lot of establishment Republicans away. At one time, Rubio was one of those politicians. And though he dislikes Clinton more than he likes Trump, I wouldn't call him a fan of his former rival, who used to refer to him as "Little Marco."
Secondly, I doubt Rubio's suggesting that he agrees with "Bernie or Bust" backers on anything beyond swiping Clinton's nomination. There's absolutely no way a Republican would prefer a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist instead of an establishment politician, even if she is Democratic. So, maybe Rubio's vapid criticism was a result of boredom. Maybe it wasn't supposed to mean anything.
That type of attitude brings to mind another certain someone. The resemblance between Rubio's curt "what a disaster" comment and Trump's usual tweets — "SAD!" — is striking. In fact, I would have guessed the tweet was written by Trump before anyone else. Jon Favreau, Obama's former chief speech writer, apparently thought the same thing.
But Rubio hasn't done a great job thus far of convincing Americans to vote for Trump instead of Clinton, even though he's weakly endorsed him.
On Wednesday, Rubio told WGN Radio that he believes Trump can learn to be more presidential once he actually gains experience. Still, he hasn't wholeheartedly expressed faith that that will happen, and that's not very reassuring. Instead, it appears as though he perceives Trump as being the lesser of two evils, so to speak.
Ultimately, Rubio's words don't hold much clout, especially after he advised that Trump should not be trusted with nuclear codes back in May. And that's a serious accusation. He may be out of the race, but he's not ready to quit shouting from the sidelines.
