New York Times Front Page Ponders Marco Rubio as Savior for 'Aging,' Out-of-Touch GOP

By Clay Waters | May 8, 2015 | 3:43 PM EDT

The New York Times devoted valuable front-page, over-the-fold space and a banner photo to a story Friday on Sen. Marco Rubio campaigning in Iowa for the Republican nomination. But while Jonathan Martin and Ashley Parker's text was rather positive toward Rubio himself, the report and the surrounding headlines came down hard on the GOP as an old, stodgy, white party: "Rubio's Immigrant Story, and an Aging Party in Search of a Spark."

The caption under the Rubio photo included this mocking summation of his appeal: "That his parents fled Cuba and worked in humble jobs has sent some Republicans swooning." The text box reduced Rubio to the sum of his demographics: "A candidacy viewed as a way to change the character of the G.O.P."

At a recent ice cream social here, Jim Hallihan liked what he heard from Senator Marco Rubio.

....

But there was something larger that drew Mr. Hallihan, a former Iowa State basketball coach, to Mr. Rubio, 43, the son of poor Cuban immigrants.

“The day of the older white guy is kind of out,” said Mr. Hallihan, a 70-year-old white guy.

As Mr. Rubio has introduced himself to curious, and overwhelmingly Caucasian, Republican audiences from Iowa to New Hampshire, he has vaulted to the front ranks of the early pack of likely presidential candidates, partly because of his natural political talent. But it may owe just as much to the combination of his personal story and the balm it offers to a party that has been repeatedly scalded by accusations of prejudice.

He says he is highlighting his background only to share his own twist on the American dream -- not out of any desire to make history on behalf of Hispanics. But Mr. Rubio and those around him are also acutely aware of the sometimes raw tensions in his party, between those unsettled by an increasingly diverse society and those who say Republicans must embrace the multihued America of 2015.

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Conservatives have long had a philosophical contempt for politics driven by gender, racial or class designations. But those sentiments are giving way as the party tries to compete with Democrats, who galvanized support among targeted demographics to decisively win consecutive presidential elections.

Martin rubbed in the GOP's demographic doom:

Republican voters are overwhelmingly white: The composition of the electorate in almost every contested state during the 2012 party primary was about 90 percent or more non-Hispanic white, according to exit polls.

Back in March, Martin played the same theme of stick-in-the-mud Republicans by embracing moderate Jeb Bush, whom he viewed as helpfully lecturing his party that it "must accept a changing country: that the path to the presidency will be found through appealing to voters who may not look like them."

From Friday's story:

But Mr. Rubio seems mindful of the risks of confronting the most conservative elements of his party over delicate racial issues.

At a candidate forum in New Hampshire last month, he passed up the chance to offer even a gentle reproach to a woman who, citing bilingual store signs and automated phone lines, complained that immigrants were not “coming here and learning English.”

“Well, here’s the bottom line,” Mr. Rubio told her. “If you don’t speak English, you’re not going to prosper economically in America.”

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As for those with dial-1-for-English gripes, Mr. Rubio said, “I know Hispanics that complain about that, especially people in the second or third generation.”

The report returned to the condescending theme of Republicans unprepared for a "changing country."

Mr. Rubio has met with some pushback in his party from people who see the country changing and want to stop placating those who are unhappy about it.