Rubio says he’s best challenger for Hillary Clinton during visit to Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS - Marco Rubio isn't ignoring the fact that he has a few hurdles to clear before getting the Republican presidential nomination. But in a Cedar Rapids town hall meeting Tuesday, the Florida senator said he offers the best contrast to presumed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

'One out of six Republicans is running for president,” he said, getting a chuckle out of an early morning crowd of about 100 people at his Marriott Hotel campaign event. 'I think it's down to one out of seven.”

Although the race for the Republican nomination is far from over, Rubio said the party has a 'pretty good head start” on the general election because 'none of our candidates is a socialist, and none of our candidates is under FBI investigation.”

Rubio, who is running third behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and businessman Donald Trump in the RealClearPolitics.com average of Iowa caucuses polling, said there's little margin for error in the 2016 election.

'We cannot afford another four years like last seven,” he said. 'This is why we can't afford to elect just any Republican, because this is not just a battle between two political parties. It is a choice about our identity as a nation.”

That sounded 'Reagan-like” to Barbara Hall of Cedar Rapids.

'I've been checking out a couple of the candidates, but he's the only candidate to give me goose bumps,” she said, adding that after hearing Rubio, 'I've pretty much made up my mind.”

Kevin Slaman is in the same place.

'If I was voting right now, he would be the guy,” the Cedar Rapids Republican said. He believes Rubio will appeal to a wide spectrum of voters. 'He has all the tools, and he's a candidate voters can rally around.”

Republicans need to nominate a candidate who 'understands what people are going through and why they are frustrated,” Rubio said.

Clinton won't be able to lecture him about people living paycheck to paycheck, the burden of college debt or the challenges of raising children, Rubio said, 'because I've lived many of the same things people are confronting.”

Growing up, Rubio lived paycheck to paycheck. He owed more than $100,000 in student loans when he graduated from law school. He said he and his wife, Jeanette, 'have to work harder than ever to ensure that our children grow up with the values we teach in our home and in our church and not the values that they are being bombarded with on TV and the music and everything else.”

It's the differences, the contrasts, that make him the best GOP opponent to Clinton, Rubio said.

'If I'm the nominee, the Democrats are going to be the party of yesterday … of stale ideas,” he said. 'We're going to be the party that applies conservative principles to new challenges.”

Bruce Bernier, a Cedar Rapids Republican, was struck by the contrast between Rubio, 44, and Clinton, 68, whom he saw in Cedar Rapids on Monday.

'He has all the vim and vigor of a younger guy,” Bernier said. 'Clinton doesn't display the same energy.”

The contrast goes further, he said. Clinton talked about her goals, while Rubio talked about how to achieve his.

'It's hard to disagree with her goals, but she didn't tell me anything that made me think she could do it,” Bernier said. 'Rubio talks about what it takes to make the sausage.”

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