DeMint Endorses Rubio

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint has announced that he is supporting Marco Rubio in the race to replace Mel Martinez.

For months now, Republicans have been looking around, asking everyone they meet who our next leaders will be. And somehow, inexplicably, many of us have grown blind to the diamonds all around us. There are already many young, conservative leaders ready to fight for freedom in Washington and in state capitals all around the country. But we’ll never find them if we only look for well-known politicians or choose our party’s direction based on the latest polls instead of timeless principles.

Rubio is the son of Cuban exiles, who fled to the United States in the late 1950s without a dollar in their pocket. He tells inspiring stories about the neighborhoods where he grew up, and how America empowered his family to make a life for themselves. Rubio did rise: to college and law school, to the City Commission in West Miami to the legislature, all the way to the speaker’s chair. From each of these positions, Rubio has championed a positive, principled, conservative agenda as the best way to create jobs and opportunities. He is living the American Dream, and understands how much he owes to our Founders and their principles of personal liberty and limited government. He wants to serve because he wants to protect those principles – when Marco Rubio swears an oath to our constitution, he’s one of those politicians who will actually mean it.

Everywhere he has gone, Rubio has stood up to liberal ideas and interest groups, and stood up for freedom. He has taken on daunting issues – from a statewide education curriculum to energy reform – and succeeded in persuading independents and Democrats that his ideas – innovative, conservative solutions – make for the best answers to our biggest challenges.

He is exactly the kind of Senator Florida needs, and exactly the kind of leader our party is looking for: a conservative’s conservative with a record of success in a swing state, a self-made first generation American, a dynamic Republican spokesman in two languages, a young husband and father himself dealing with the same problems middle class families like his face every day.

Too many in the GOP leadership have fallen into the trap of thinking that becoming “Democrat-lite” is the way to go. They are wrong. Luke warm Republicanism is no substitute for clear convictions and conservative values. We can compromise on plans and programs, but we can not compromise our values. We must avoid faulty thinking that confuses the two.

Marc Rubio is someone who appears to understand that difference. Programs change, principles do not. That is the kind of thinking we need to rebuild our party and move our country forward.

There is no question Marco Rubio will be a big part of the Republican Party’s future, but I believe if we are to defeat the forces of Big Government now controlling Washington, Marco Rubio needs to be a big part of the Republican Party’s present. He has the skills and ideas we need to rebuild our party, reform our government, and renew our nation.

I urge those of you in Florida to do whatever you can to help Marco Rubio in his run for the Senate. It is going to be a tough battle where he will be fighting against name recognition, fund raising, and even the party leadership. But it is a fight that needs to be made, and a fight that can be won.

Visit the Marco Rubio campaign website and follow @MarcoRubio on twitter.

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