Rubio stays off campaign trail as Trump Cabinet rallies behind Republicans

Marco Rubio has spent decades in politics, which means he knows exactly what he's doing by staying home. Everyone else in the Cabinet is out there doing the rope lines and the local radio hits, and the Secretary of State is conspicuously not. That's not an accident. That's a guy managing a 2028 map three years before anyone else is allowed to admit they're thinking about it.

There's a real argument for it, too. Secretary of State is supposed to be above the muck, at least in theory, and every domestic campaign stop chips away at that a little. Rubio traveling the world talking about Venezuela and Iran plays differently than Rubio standing next to some House candidate in a Facebook video that gets used against him later. He's protecting the brand. Smart, if a little bloodless.

But midterms are exactly when the party needs its bench showing up, and if Rubio wants to be the guy the base trusts in three years, ducking the fight now is a strange way to earn it. Loyalty gets remembered, and so does its absence. Voters in these tight districts notice who bothered to show up when it mattered and who was busy keeping his own lane clean.

We get the strategy. We're just not sure it's the right one. There's a difference between staying above politics and staying above the party, and right now Rubio looks like he's choosing the second while hoping nobody notices the gap.