A New Way Forward?

The big news in politics this week was Marco Rubio’s 5^th place finish in the New Hampshire primary. Rubio had been gaining momentum following his third place finish in the earlier Iowa primary. The reaction in the press to that result was similar to when a team from a desert nation with no mountains or snow takes the bobsledding bronze in the winter Olympics – it’s as good as a win.

Rubio’s campaign is now considering a shift in tactics. According to the politics website Politiyo.com, the Rubio team is exploring three different options to energize his campaign:

The Image Makeover Option

Rubio was criticized for repeating the same canned lines over and over in a pair of debates. This led many to claim that Rubio was robotic. So the campaign has developed a plan to embrace this new image. It has developed new ad drawing on the hip, cool appeal of 80’s popular culture:

The Enforcer Option

In the NHL, hockey teams use an “enforcer” to intimidate the better players on opposing teams. The Rubio team is considering adapting this to politics. According to Politiyo.com, the Rubio team is in talks with Chris Christie to act as their enforcer. Christie would be hired to threaten candidates and their family members. The key advantage of this approach is plausible deniability – any candidate claiming he is being threatened by Christie will immediately be labeled a paranoid kook.

The Lockerbie Option

This is the riskiest option, but also the one with the greatest potential benefit. Everyone knows that Donald Trump flies to events in a private jet (it’s a great way to connect with people struggling to pay for their kids’ college tuitions). The Rubio team would simply blow up the plane in flight using a silica gel bomb hidden in a tub of hair gel. Everyone will assume a terrorist attack has occurred. This will work in Rubio’s favor as he is the only GOP candidate with any real foreign policy experience – he’s lied about the year and circumstances under which his parents “fled” Cuba.