Rubio juggles principles, desire to win Iowa
By Steve Benen, MSNBC.
Marco Rubio has a dilemma. The Florida senator clearly wants to win the Iowa Republican caucuses, which would help propel him to his party’s presidential nomination. He also wants to defend his far-right policy priorities, which means opposing the ethanol mandate and taking aim at the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
The trouble, of course, is that those two goals are occasionally in conflict. The RFS is quite popular in Iowa, but it’s also plainly at odds with Rubio’s conservative agenda.