On Thursday night, Marco Rubio decided he would cancel his appearance at the inaugural Conservative Review Convention in Greenville, South Carolina, in all likelihood because most of the strongly conservative audience preferred Ted Cruz and a small percentage preferred Ben Carson.
All three candidates had accepted invitations to speak at the conference, which was hosted by talk radio’s Mark Levin and commentator Michelle Malkin and organized by Conservative Review.
Buzzfeed reported that soon after the event started at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena, a Rubio aide told organizers Rubio was running late and probably would have to cancel, prompting organizers to tell the audience that Rubio’s tardiness was due to an “unforeseen issue.” Organizers scrambled to reorient the schedule to accommodate Rubio. Rubio’s team acknowledged that they wanted organizers to let one of Rubio’s surrogates, Sen. Tim Scott, Rep. Trey Gowdy, or Governor Bobby Jindal, take Rubio’s 20-minute allotment.
The organizers pointed out that they couldn’t acquiesce; one organizer noted that they had denied the Jeb Bush campaign the same request, adding that making an exception for Rubio could be viewed as an illegal contribution.
WND reported that Rubio canceled five minutes before he was due to speak, just after Rep. Louie Gohmert fiercely condemned amnesty views of some candidates, ostensibly including Rubio, in a fiery address. When it was Rubio’s turn to speak, Levin, standing on stage, asked, “Marco Rubio, will you raise your hand? … Where is he?”
Gohmert told Breitbart News, “I didn’t mention his name, I didn’t mention any of his supporters. I just pointed out that we were really excited because we had been fighting Boehner’s amnesty and McCain-Schumer’s amnesty and we were so excited when we had a great tea party senator elected from Florida and then he joined the Gang of 8 bill.”
When Malkin, the event’s emcee, announced Rubio was not coming, the crowd booed. Cruz’s team bashed Rubio, as did Levin. Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler said: “This is a final admission that Marco Rubio isn’t even going to try to compete for the votes of conservatives in South Carolina or anywhere else. And who can blame him? Rubio isn’t a conservative. Instead Rubio and his campaign would rather hide behind their deceptive campaign tactics and liberal record on amnesty for illegals and voting to nominate John Kerry.”
When Rubio’s team attempted to paint the event as skewed, noting CR has given Rubio a conservative rating of only 79%, and that Levin and Malkin, senior editors for the site, have slammed Rubio before, a CR editor pointed out a salient fact: each campaign was given “hundreds of tickets” for their supporters, and the fact that the event was so largely pro-Cruz was a testimony to the candidate’s ground game.
“Marco Rubio, will you raise your hand? … Where is he?”
Mark Levin, vainly calling for Marco Rubio, who canceled at the last second.
One Rubio adviser lamely explained to BuzzFeed News that the problem derived from a campaign still in flux because it had to add South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to campaign plans.
Levin was furious, blasting, “If the conservative convention isn’t good enough for Marco Rubio, it isn’t good enough for his surrogates. Cruz didn’t send a surrogate in here. Carson didn’t send a surrogate in here. It was pretty damn rude of Rubio, quite frankly.”