The national press this past week has been abuzz about the latest initiative from Florida’s Junior Senator, a war on poverty that takes the programs and vision of Lyndon Johnson and sends them back to the states, essentially dismantling the programs.  That Rubio made his proposal on the 50th anniversary of LBJ’s State of the Union speech declaring a  Republican war on poverty was another act of political showmanship and was quite frankly in poor taste especially given the anniversary.

Rubio doesn’t need an invitation to shoot of his mouth, but when the national media hangs on his every word and the Republican establishment keeps trotting him out to give hackish opinions, it is no shock he has become a magnet for cameras.

Proposing that federal programs be sent to the states sounds very much like mid 1990s Republican rhetoric. At the same time the mainstream of the GOP was proposing cutting cabinet agencies and block granting most functions of the federal government back to the states. While the Republicans have today become extreme on social issues, in the 1980s and 1990s arguably the sole function of the party was to dismantle government often at the behest of large corporate contributors and K Street lobbyists. Many of these lobbyists and think-tank allies who decried Government ironically made their living off a relationship with it, especially after the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994.

Florida’s Junior Senator has time and again echoed the dangerous rhetoric of the Reagan and Gingrich years, time when the Republicans were committed to destroying the legacy of the New Deal and Great Society rather than reluctantly accepting it which is the situation today. Then again in those days the Democrats had adopted a certain degree of Reaganomics and were crowding out any sort of reasonable moderate position pushing the Republicans further and further right.

Today, while the GOP remains a right-wing party on economics, it is not in my mind nearly as rhetorically conservative as it was in the time period from 1980 to 1999. Now the Republicans soften the rhetoric and tend to focus on social issues (where the party is far more radical than in the 1980s and 1990s) which may explain partially the rise of the tea party.

The Junior Senator from Florida used his appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation to accuse President Obama of “emboldening the Taliban.” If Rubio’s economic rhetoric harkened back to the Reagan and Gingrich years, his foreign policy commentary reminds us of Joe McCarthy and the comments of right-wing Republicans about the Truman Administration.

In November, I wrote that Rubio was completely wrong about the Middle East. Now he’s adding Central Asia to his checklist. Perhaps it would be wise if he just kept his mouth shut on foreign policy in general. The excessively political views that Rubio articulates are meant to stir up the GOP base but show he is incapable of making reasoned and well  thought out comments about foreign affairs.

Rubio, ever the astute pol, mixing below the belt attacks on the President with a reactionary voting record could keep both the GOP establishment and  Tea Party clamoring for him with this combination of rhetoric and votes. The national media is playing its part in fueling Rubio’s support by elevating his profile. Time will tell whether or not this formula will continue to work.

But in the meantime, Florida is deprived the type of representation we are sccustomened to in Washington. While our Junior Senator grandstands and postures for the media and right-wing ideologues, the state is forced to make do with a single senator that is focused on the state’s issues. That is bad news for every citizen of the state regardless of ideology or party registration.