A man in a hurry
04/14/2015 15:56
During primary season, such questions are often answered in New Hampshire barns. So on one recent freezing afternoon, Rubio stood amid the rough-hewn beams of a pretty red barn in a postcard-quaint New Hampshire town as a crowd of Republican Yankees sized him up.
Rubio’s youth is written all over his moon-shaped face, with soft, boyish features framed by the neatly parted haircut of an altar boy. But now, wearing a casual black pullover and open-neck shirt, Rubio worked to project gravitas and position himself as the bearer of the kind of wise common sense that plays well in New England.
And he told his parents’ immigration story, how they came from Cuba with a grade-school education. It’s the central pillar of his political narrative, and at every stop he talks about the “exceptionalism” of America, a country where the son of a bartender and a maid grew up knowing that there were no limits to his future.
“They lived the American Dream,” Rubio said. Now, he said, the nation’s urgent challenge is to make sure the next generation can also say “our future can be better than our past.”
Jack Hanover, 69, a small business owner, was impressed. He liked Rubio’s “youth” and “vitality” and said the Florida senator just might be what the Republicans need in 2016.
But others needed more convincing that this up-and-comer was ready to be commander-in-chief.
“I personally think he is a little bit young,” said Ed Stebbins, 57, an insurance agent. “He could use a bit more government — or some other — experience. Being president is not exactly an easy job, and you want somebody who has been in the trenches.”
As the New Hampshire folks kept talking, Rubio was already on the move, barreling down a snowy road toward the next crowd, itching to pitch himself again.
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