Marco Antonio Rubio (born May 28, 1971) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Florida. A Republican, he previousl...
Marco Antonio Rubio (born May 28, 1971) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Florida. A Republican, he previously served as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. Rubio unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2016, winning presidential primaries in the State of Minnesota, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Rubio is a Cuban American from Miami, Florida. After serving as a city commissioner for West Miami in the 1990s, he was elected to represent the 111th district in the Florida House of Representatives in 2000. Subsequently, he was elected speaker of the Florida House, and was Speaker for two years beginning in November 2006. Upon leaving the Florida legislature in 2008 due to term limits, Rubio taught at Florida International University.
Rubio successfully ran for the United States Senate in 2010. In April 2015, he announced that he would not seek re-election to the Senate, instead choosing to run for president. He suspended his campaign for president on March 15, 2016, after losing the Florida Republican primary to the eventual winner of the presidential election, Donald Trump. He then decided to run for re-election to the Senate, winning a second term later that year. Due to his influence on U.S. policies in regard to Latin America he has been described as a "virtual secretary of state for Latin America."
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Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician, businessman, and author who was a five-term Senator from Arizona (...
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician, businessman, and author who was a five-term Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for president of the United States in 1964. Despite his loss of the 1964 presidential election in a landslide, Goldwater is the politician most often credited with having sparked the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. He also had a substantial impact on the libertarian movement.Goldwater rejected the legacy of the New Deal and, along with the conservative coalition, fought against the New Deal coalition. A member of the NAACP and active supporter of desegregation in Phoenix, Goldwater voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, believing it to be an overreach by the federal government—a decision that considerably anguished him. In 1964, Goldwater mobilized a large conservative constituency to win the hard-fought Republican presidential primaries. Although raised as an Episcopalian, Goldwater was the first candidate of ethnically Jewish heritage to be nominated for President by a major American party (his father was Jewish). Goldwater's platform ultimately failed to gain the support of the electorate and he lost the 1964 presidential election to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson by one of the largest margins in history. Goldwater returned to the Senate in 1969 and specialized in defense and foreign policy. As an elder statesman of the party, Goldwater successfully urged President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974 when evidence of a cover-up in the Watergate scandal became overwhelming and impeachment was imminent.
Goldwater narrowly won re-election in 1980 for what would be his final and most influential term in the senate. In 1986, Goldwater oversaw passage of the Goldwater–Nichols Act, arguably his most significant legislative achievement, which strengthened civilian authority in the Department of Defense. The following year, he retired from the Senate and was succeeded by John McCain, who praised his predecessor as the man who "transformed the Republican Party from an Eastern elitist organization to the breeding ground for the election of Ronald Reagan". Goldwater strongly supported the 1980 presidential campaign of Reagan, who had become the standard-bearer of the conservative movement after his "A Time for Choosing" speech. Reagan reflected many of the principles of Goldwater's earlier run in his campaign. The Washington Post columnist George Will took note of this, writing: "We [...] who voted for him in 1964 believe he won, it just took 16 years to count the votes".
Goldwater's views grew increasingly libertarian as he neared the end of his career. After leaving the Senate, Goldwater's views cemented as libertarian. He criticized the "moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others [in the Republican Party] who are trying to... make a religious organization out of it." He lobbied for homosexuals to be able to serve openly in the military, opposed the Clinton administration's plan for health care reform, supported abortion rights, and the legalization of medicinal marijuana.
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