Delivering a home-state blow to the struggling campaign of Marco Rubio, the
South Florida Sun-Sentinel has announced that it will not endorse a candidate for the state's March 15 Republican presidential primary.
"We cannot endorse businessman Donald Trump, hometown Sen. Marco Rubio or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz because they are unqualified to be president," the paper revealed in a Monday editorial.
"Ohio Gov. John Kasich is the best of the bunch, but if you measure a candidate by the caliber of his campaign, Kasich's lack of traction and organization make a vote for him count for little."
The editors say front-runner Trump "lacks the experience and temperament to be president," while the "unequivocal" Cruz "has alienated almost everyone he's worked with" and "scares us."
The paper leans to Kasich but notes "he lacks presidential presence. And he doesn't have a chance of winning because the Republican base is in rebellion and he got out of the gate too late to build a viable campaign organization.
"Perhaps in a more-rational election year, the Sun Sentinel would endorse John Kasich. But we can't urge you to vote for someone who doesn't have a chance of winning the nomination."
But the newspaper's most stinging denunciation was aimed at first-term Sunshine State senator Rubio.
"[H]e has almost no experience and has done little but run for office," the editors write. "Then, when he gets in office, he doesn't go to work very much. He holds the worst attendance record in the U.S. Senate.
"Because Rubio has failed to do his job as a senator, broken the promises he made to Floridians and backed away from his lone signature piece of legislation on immigration, we cannot endorse him for president."
Editorial page editor Rosemary O'Hara reiterated the rebuke in an
interview with CNN's Brooke Baldwin.
"We're disappointed with (Rubio). We endorsed him when he ran for Senate believing that he was an agent of change and he would follow through, but as soon as he got to Washington, he started running for president," she said. "We haven't seen much of him since he went to Washington."