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AEIdeas

Des Moines, Iowa —

In my Washington Post column this morning, I discuss why, on both the left and right, the big loser in Monday’s Iowa caucuses was the political establishment.

But the big winner in Iowa was the conservative heart.

Ted Cruz deserves credit for his impressive comeback win over Donald Trump. He beat Trump for the angry conservative vote.

But the most impressive performance last night was from Marco Rubio. Consider: In December, the Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll showed Rubio trailing Trump and Cruz with just 10% support. Last night, he won 23% of the vote – and came within just one percentage point of overtaking Donald Trump to win second place. That is remarkable.

So why did Rubio surge? Rubio gave us the answer in his speech last night:

For months, for months they told us we had no chance. For months they told us because we offer too much optimism in a time of anger, we had no chance…. But tonight, tonight here in Iowa, the people of this great state have sent a very clear message…. When I am our nominee, we are going to unify this party, and we are going to unify the conservative movement. When I’m our nominee, we are going to grow the conservative movement, we’re going to take our message to the people who are struggling paycheck to paycheck. To the students living under the burden of student loans. To the families struggling to raise their children with the right values, we will take our message to them and bring them to our side.…. I know America is special. I was raised to people who knew what life was like outside of America. I was raised by people who came to this country with nothing, they barely spoke English at the time. They had no money. My father stopped going to school when he was nine years old, he had to go work. He would never go back to school. He would work for the next 70 years of his life. My parents arrived in this country, they struggled. They were discouraged but they persevered. Less than a decade after they arrived here with nothing, my father a bartender on Miami beach, they owned a home. Not a mansion, but a safe and stable home in a safe and stable neighborhood. Decades later they would retire with dignity and security. And the most important thing of all for them, they left all four of their children with a life better than their own. This was the purpose of my parents’ life, to give their kids, us, the chance to do all the things they never could. That’s not just my story. That’s our story, that’s America’s story. That’s the story of your parents — you know the stories. Of your parents who sacrificed and gave up so much so you could be what they could not. It’s the stories of those parents today who are doing the same for their children. It is this that makes America special. And this is what we fight now to preserve. This is the kind of country that I want to leave for my children. This is the kind of country your children deserve to inherit as well. And this is what we must now decide. Whether we will remain that kind of country, or whether we will be the first generation to lose it. It’s an important choice. And one that each generation before us has had to make. For America is not a special country by accident. America is a great nation. Because each generation before us did their part. Each generation before us sacrificed, they confronted their challenges, they embraced their opportunities, and for over two centuries, each generation has left the next better off than themselves. When I am elected president, when we together achieve this victory, we will embrace all the principles that made America great and apply them to the unique challenges of this new century. When our work is done, here is what history will say of this generation. It will say that we lived in the early years of this new century, in an uncertain and difficult time, but we remember who we were. … Because they did, the American dream reached more people and changed more lives than ever before. Our children and grandchildren grew up to be the freest Americans that ever lived.

Note the lack of anger, the focus on the poor and the vulnerable, and — importantly — the relentless optimism of Rubio’s message. This is what drove Rubio’s impressive performance yesterday. He practices what Arthur Brooks calls the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Conservatives.” He is a happy warrior who fights for people, not against things. That is what makes Marco Rubio the candidate who most terrifies the Democrats. One Democratic strategist I met in Des Moines this week told me Democrats believe they can beat Trump or Cruz, but they can’t beat Rubio.

Other candidates should take note, because the lesson of Rubio’s Iowa comeback is this: In a season of anger, the conservative heart is still beating.



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