Tryouts for billionaires

As it stands today, the top candidate for leading man is the babyfaced Marco Rubio, who seems to be doing a much better job of finessing the GOPs immigration quagmire than Walker. Being Latino himself certainly doesn’t hurt, but as my colleague Elias Isquith pointed out yesterday, his slipperiness on the issue is actually quite impressive:

After putting together a big, bipartisan and comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013 — which passed the Senate only to die ignominiously in the House — Rubio has spent more than a year disowning his sole legislative accomplishment and urging heartbroken Tea Partiers to forgive him for his sins. His dalliance with “amnesty” didn’t mean anything; he promises he’ll “secure the border” first, if only they’ll give him the chance and take him back.

The whole incident was embarrassing and led to his being “unceremoniously defenestrated,” as BuzzFeed puts it, from the rarefied air of the 2016 elite. But now there’s reason to wonder if what looked like a blunder was really part of a larger scheme — or at least that’s what Rubio wants donors (and the BuzzFeed-reading political class) to think. Rubio’s onetime support of comprehensive reform, BuzzFeed reports, “has proved to be a substantial draw within the GOP money crowd.”

And I’d guess there are a few gay Republican billionaires to whom he’d be happy to whisper his personal tolerance for marriage equality too. You can’t let Cruz corner the market, after all. Rubio would also certainly be one guy you could depend upon for a hawkish foreign policy, which seems to be a must among these super-rich puppet masters.

And what would you know, mega-donor Sheldon Adelson is smitten:

In recent weeks, Adelson, who spent $100 million on the 2012 campaign and could easily match that figure in 2016, has told friends that he views the Florida senator, whose hawkish defense views and unwavering support for Israel align with his own, as a fresh face who is “the future of the Republican Party.” He has also said that Rubio’s Cuban heritage and youth would give the party a strong opportunity to expand its brand and win the White House…

Since entering the Senate in 2011, Rubio has met privately with the mogul on a half-dozen occasions. In recent months, he‘s been calling Adelson about once every two weeks, providing him with meticulous updates on his nascent campaign. During a recent trip to New York City, Rubio took time out of his busy schedule to speak by phone with the megadonor.

Rubio really is a GOP dreamboat, isn’t he? He even calls when he’s on the road!