Marco Rubio’s campaign unveiled its first ad, to run nationally on cable networks starting tomorrow.
MARCO RUBIO: This is a civilizational struggle between the values of freedom and liberty, and radical Islamic terror. What happened in Paris could happen here. There is no middle ground. These aren’t disgruntled or dis-empowered people. These are radical terrorists who want to kill us, because we let women drive, because we let girls go to school. I’m Marco Rubio. I approve this message because there can be no arrangement or negotiation. Either they win or we do.
From where I sit, this is a really good ad, aimed squarely at what the public wants from our current president and isn’t getting. Rubio’s brief statement doesn’t understate the threat, it isn’t afraid to use the term “radical Islamic terror” — contrast that with Hillary’s “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism” — it rejects the politically correct piety that poverty or oppression causes terrorism, and points out the misogyny that drives these groups. (“Misogyny” has been so overused by the campus feminists that it feels refreshing to use the term to describe actual hatred of women, not some perceived micro-aggression.) There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking in these statements, but that’s fine; you don’t usually see detailed policy proposals in campaign ads.