Ugh! Top Marco Rubio staffer Cesar Conda pushed for earlier Florida Primary to help Romney

marco-rubioSay it ain’t so Marco! The Other McCain has posted an exclusive story revealing that Marco Rubio’s senatorial chief of staff, Cesar Conda, has been a major force in persuading Florida Republicans to move their primary from March to January 31st. Cesar Conda even used to be with Romney’s campaign according to the article.

When Florida defied Republican National Committee rules to move the state’s 2012 presidential primary from an RNC-approved March date to Jan. 31, conservatives immediately suspected that state party insiders had orchestrated the move to help former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney thwart the momentum of Tea Party-backed candidate Herman Cain. Some Florida activists focused their suspicion on moderates in state party leadership – allies of Senate candidate George LeMieux and of former Gov. Charlie Crist — as orchestrating the change in the primary date. The move was seen as helping the centrist Romney, whose superior fund-raising resources would enable him to score an early knockout in the Sunshine State before Cain could fully leverage the boost he got from an upset victory in a Sept. 24 Florida GOP straw poll.

Yet while the moderate Republican faction in Tallahassee was immediately blamed for the primary date-switch, only insiders knew that a key factor was a push from inside the staff of the Tea Party’s own 2010 hero, Sen. Marco Rubio. GOP sources in Washington and Florida say that Rubio’s senatorial chief of staff, Cesar Conda, has been a major force in persuading Florida Republicans to move their primary to January.

“Cesar used to be with Romney’s campaign,” one informed source explained to me in an interview today, adding: “Conda used his contacts to push the primary to the 31st because they want Romney in.”

Conda’s loyalty to Romney was highlighted in a Politico story by Scott Wong last week: “At least six past and current Rubio Senate aides, including chief of staff Cesar Conda and his deputy, Terry Sullivan, worked for Romney’s 2008 presidential bid, establishing a direct link and a line of communication between the front-runner for the 2012 GOP nomination and the front-runner in the Republican veepstakes. There’s also a trail of fundraisers, donors and consultants who have overlapping relationships with Rubio and Romney.”

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October 13, 2011 · Filed Under Mitt Romney, RINOs


Comments

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  • http://nolp.blogspot.com davidfarrar

    One of the ways you can tell if the fix is ever in for Obama to win the 2012 election is if Sen. Rubio ever agrees to be on a ticket as the vice-president on the Republicn ticket. So many people now undertsand that Obama isn’t a “natural born citizen, few would be able to bring themseleves to also vote for yet another unconstituional candidate just because he has an “R” in front of this name.

    Sadly, and for the record: as much as I admire and support Sen. Rubio — we know each other personally — he cannot meet the requirement of Art. II, Sec. I, Clus. 5 of a natural born Citizen, as every president since George Washington has known it to be (with the exception of Chester Arthur and Barack Obama), that being born of two U.S. citizens within the jurisdiction of the United States.

    While his parents may well have been permanent residents, Green-Card holders, they were not naturalized U. S. citizens at the time of Sen. Rubio’s birth in Miami, Florida.
    Sen. Rubio knows this and would be the last person on earth to suggest the Constitution be changed just to suit his political ambition. Therefore, I am not surprised in the least Sen. Rubio has declined to run for the vice-presidency. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

    ex animo
    davidfarrar

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