Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:37 pm
Influential billionaire investor and wanna be GOP king maker Paul Singer has decided to throw his support behind Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Senator Rubio and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush were both aggressively courting the New York billionaire. Singer is not only very wealthy, but he is also influential in persuading other high roller donors to pony up for the candidate he supports.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Singer was the single largest contributor to Republican candidates and causes in 2014. In 2012, he helped bundle over 3 million dollars to help finance Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful presidential campaign. On Friday, he sent out a letter to fellow billionaires encouraging them to also invest in Rubio’s candidacy.
Early on Saturday morning rival Republican candidate Donald Trump mocked the endorsement, tweeting:
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I see Marco Rubio just landed another billionaire to give big money to his Superpac, which are total scams. Marco must address him as “SIR”!
While Trump’s tweet was predictably uncouth, there is an underlying truth behind it. While Rubio loves to tell his story, depicting himself as a common man who overcame great obstacles to achieve the American dream, his campaign is instead doing the bidding for America’s “beleaguered” billionaires.
Senator Rubio wants to be president, but he is a mediocre fundraiser who has had difficulty attracting donors. He is also a notoriously lazy candidate, who has not spent much time in the early voting states. He has opened very few campaign offices.
However, even though Senator Rubio is not a hard worker, he has found a willing New York billionaire sugar daddy to prop up his lackadaisical campaign with an infusion of cash. Of course, as Donald Trump suggested, this may also make Rubio an obsequious candidate who obeys his billionaire backers with unusual servility. When you put a bunch of money into the pockets of an empty suit, you expect something in return. Billionaire Paul Singer is trying to buy influence, and in Marco Rubio, he has found the perfect puppet to promote his agenda for the one percent.
Keith Brekhus is a progressive American who currently resides in Red Lodge, Montana. He is co-host for the Liberal Fix radio show. He holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri. In 2002, he ran for Congress as a Green Party candidate in the state of Missouri. In 2014, he worked as a field organizer for Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick’s successful re-election bid in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. He can be followed on Twitter @keithbrekhus or on Facebook.
