Conspiracies and Monoliths

Marco Rubio's statements, from the Buzz:

"The Republican Party is a big enough party for people of different viewpoints to fit in nicely. That's what makes us different from Democrats. The Democrats, in my opinion, are pretty monolithic. No Democrat could write the op-ed piece I wrote (on energy) because they would get excommunicated from the party."

What?

What the hell is he talking about? What reality does he live in? (apparently one where his tax amendment is a good idea, one where sales tax isn't regressive, and one where his non-action in preventing gambling bills from passing is more morally defensible than Crist's non-signing of them) I conclude that he must be totally insane.

This has already been commented on by Pushing Rope, and Ken Quinnell seems to think Rubio is a fan of Progressive Radio. But, I'd like to use this as a launching pad for some commentary.

"Monolith" implies both power and unity. Democrats currently have neither, and have never really had a good understanding of what "unity" means. I don't know who Rubio was directing those comments towards - everyone who would have read those words would be politically savvy enough to understand that the Democratic Party is hardly a monolith. In fact, I imagine most people reading the Buzz's post would either laugh or cringe (maybe not; compare the comments on the Buzz's coverage of Rubio's comments vs the coverage of Gelber's response. Hopefully I won't ever have to recommend reading the comments on that blog again). So why did he say that? And who was he saying it to?

If anything, the Republican party is monolithic - look at the property tax special session. The Republican leadership walked in, slapped their plan on the table (Yes, during, not before, the session), and had it rubber stamped in THREE days (out of an allotted ten). That's a sign of both power and unity.

However, it looks like the Republican party isn't quite as unified as it might appear. There's evidence that Rubio (and Pruitt to a lesser extent) achieved unity through power, rather than the other way around. A number of Republican representatives have lamented their vote for the tax amendment, and basically describe being strong armed into supporting the legislation - which they had either time to read, understand, or come up with alternatives (straight from the mouth of Sen. Bennett, as broadcast by WSLR; check out minute 13). Some might speculate Rubio and Pruitt rammed their plan through the legislature not to prevent Democrats from derailing their plan, but their own Republican allies from criticizing and voting against it.

In the weeks since then, their party has fractured in several ways. The attack mailers that went out right after the special session were defended by Rubio and Pruitt, but denounced by Greer and Crist. Then, Republican lawmakers started to realize just what kind of turd they passed in special session and have made ambivalent statements about it. And now theres this "dispute" between Rubio and Crist over climate change and gambling. Not to mention that Crist is becoming the new model of a moderate Republican even while Rubio is clinging to old school Dick Armey/George W. Bush Republicanism.

So lets get back to Rubio's bizzaro statement. Although anyone who follows politics knows that what he said is essentially the opposite of reality, Rubio might not have been lying through his teeth when he said it. With the evidence given above about how the Republican party is becoming less cohesive in the past month or two, Rubio is probably trying to reframe the images of both parties. Rubio and Crist are oil and water: Rubio is never going to support "European Style Big Government" on climate change or anything else. Other Republicans are distancing themselves from the party line on the amendment. So trying to get the message out to the media that the Republican party can healthily support internal debate is a pretty good idea. Likewise, Democrats are starting to line up solidly behind Crist - a unified position on environmental issues. In the coming months Democrats are probably going to take advantage of Crist's environmental agenda to present a cohesive plan on renewable energy and other initiatives. The only way Democrats can seize this opportunity to work with Crist is to do it with a unified party. So, Rubio is preemptively recasting that positive image into a negative one.

Hence, Republicans are (will be) a party of diverse ideas (whether actually likes it or not), and Democrats will whipping each other to hew to the party line.

Well, thats the most sense I could make of Rubio's statement. Can anyone help me out?