Establishment Republicans Didn't Endorse Rubio

Stephen Hayes from the Weekly Standard says Rubio is the most important newcomer to the Senate. He has an interesting piece on Rubio's senate run. But to me, the most interesting take from the article is what it says about establishment Republicans, and how they refused to endorse Rubio from the beginning. Even when Crist was prancing around with Barack Obama, selling his trillion dollar stimulus plan, the NRSC endorsed Charlie Crist. John Cornyn, John McCain, Mitch McConnell and Mel Martinez likewise jumped on the Crist bandwagon even as it was apparent that Crist might leave the party.

The only one who really had faith in Rubio was Jim DeMint.

I'm not saying Rubio is perfect and I don't know everything he stands for, but he appears to be humble, wants a smaller government, favors abolishing the IRS. (That said, I'm not sure why exactly he endorsed Mike Huckabee for President in 2008).

But my point is two-fold:

1. Republicans still need to weed out some of the long-time establishment guys from leadership positions before they can move forward - this includes guys like McCain and McConnell. Amazing that these guys like Cornyn are now taking the credit for the GOP after they backed the wrong guys.

2. When we hear people saying that the Tea Party was a failure, and saying they cost the GOP seats - I look at who the establishment GOP were backing (like Spector before he jumped the party), or like Crist and I think the GOP would already be dead if all the candidates had moved to the center which is what many of these establishment guys were favoring.