Florida Senate Candidate Marco Rubio at CPAC

Go here for the full text of the speech.

Rubio embraces the tea party movement and defines ground rules for collaboration with Democrats:

From tea parties to the election in Massachusetts, we are witnessing the single greatest political pushback in American history. Now, the political class tries to make sense of all of this, but they can’t, because never has the political class or the mainstream media that covers them been more out of touch with the American people than they are today. You see, 2010 is not just a choice between Republicans and Democrats. It’s not just a choice between liberals and conservatives. 2010 is a referendum on the very identity of our nation.

And the issues are so big, so consequential, so generational that many of the old rules of political engagement will not apply. For example, a long list of early establishment endorsements will not spare you a primary. Clever one line slogans aren’t going to spare you the need to discuss policy issues in detail. And the old, tired political attacks that worked once in the past aren’t going to get you elected this time.

And the reason is simple because people get it, because they understand that if we get this wrong, there may be no turning back for America. That’s why the second thing leaders want — the second thing that people want are leaders that will come here to Washington, D.C. and stand up to this big government agenda, not be co-opted by it.

After all, the U.S. Senate already has one Arlen Specter too many. And after all, America already has a Democrat Party, it doesn’t need two Democrat parties.

Now, look, it’s true, Americans do want leaders that will come to Washington, D.C. and work together to get things done, but that comes with a very important caveat, it depends what they’re trying to do. If they’re working to lower tax rates, simplify the tax code, they want us to work together. If they’re working to get control of a runaway of a federal debt and annual deficits, they want us to work together.

If they’re working to defeat radical Islam and the threat that it poses through terrorism, they want us to work together.

However, however, if the goal is to abandon America’s free enterprise economy, if the goal is to convert America into a submissive member of the international community, if the goal is not to fix America, but to change America, then they want leaders that are going to come up here and fight it every step of the way.

Rubio on what makes America unique:

Let me close by saying this. For many of us who were born and raised in this country, including me, it’s sometimes easy — sometimes easy to forget how special America really is. But I was raised by exiles, by people who know what it is like to lose their country, by people who have a unique perspective on why elections matter, or lack thereof, by people who clearly understand how different America is from the rest of the world. And they’ve taught me this my whole life.

And they taught me, by word and by deed, that what makes America great is not that we have more rich people than anybody else. What makes America great is that there are dreams that are impossible everywhere else but are possible here. And why is that? It’s because of the choices that people that came before us made.

Almost every other country in the world chose to have the government run the economy. They chose to allow government to decide which companies survive and fail. They chose to allow government to determine which industries are to be rewarded. But the problem is that when government controls the economy, those who can influence government keep winning, and everybody else just stays the same. And so in those countries, the employee never becomes the employer, the small business can never compete with a big business, and no matter how hard your parents work or how many sacrifices they make, if you weren’t born into the right family in those countries, there’s only so far you can go.

Now, we’ve had our excesses here in America, but for the better part of 234 years, Americans have chosen something very different, Americans chose individual liberty instead of the false security of government. Americans chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.

Americans chose a free enterprise system designed to provide a quality of opportunity, not compel a quality of results. And that is why this is only place in the world where you can open up a business in the spare bedroom of your home.

That is why this is the only place in the world where a company that started as an idea drawn out on the back of a cocktail napkin can one day be publicly traded on Wall Street. That’s why this is the only country in the world where today’s employee is tomorrow’s employer. And yet, there are still people in American politics who, for some reason, cling to this belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people who immigrate here from there.

Rubio’s conclusion on the choice we have:

It’s a clear choice between two very different futures. And the task this year for us is to make sure that Americans choose the right one. You see — my four children, your children and grandchildren are members of the most important generation in American history. If we succeed in convincing the American people to follow up, theirs will be the most prosperous generation in the history of our country. But if we fail, they will be the first to inherit a diminished nation.

The final verdict on our generation will be written by Americans who haven’t even been born yet. Let us make sure they write that we made the right choice, that in the early years of this century, faced with troubling and uncertain times, there were those who believed that the great American story had run its course. But we did not agree. Fear did not lead us to abandon our liberty. Uncertainty did not lead us to abandon the entrepreneurial spirit. We fought for and held on to those things that made us exceptional. And because we did, there was still one place in the world where the individual was more important than the state. Because we did, there was still at least one place in the world where who you come from does not determine where you get to go.

Let us ensure that history’s record of this time is clear that like those Americans that came before us, we rose to face the challenges of our time. Like those Americans who came before us, we made the right choice. And because we did, at least for one generation more the American miracle lived on.

Thank you all. And God bless you. Thank you for having me.

Tagged as: Florida, Marco Rubio