Mark Levin charges Sen. Marco Rubio is using "distortion and personal smears" against GOP presidential rival Sen. Ted Cruz to gain ground in his 2016 bid – warning the "unbridled ambition" won't go "unnoticed by conservatives."
In a commentary in the
Conservative Review, Levin – the outlet's editor-in-chief and host of "The Mark Levin Show" – argues the Florida lawmaker has long since abandoned his tea party principles.
"This is a friendly warning to Marco Rubio and his campaign donors, advisers, and consultants that they cannot wash away some of Rubio's less than stellar legislative actions and related positions and pronouncements by embracing and unleashing Saul Alinsky-type tactics against Ted Cruz or other conservatives," Levin writes.
"Such unprincipled ambition has not and will not go unnoticed by conservatives."
Levin writes Cruz is "clearly the more conservative and anti-establishment" candidate in comparison with Rubio.
"Rubio and his surrogates have launched a propaganda campaign against Cruz in a deceitful attempt to distort his record," he writes, noting that was anathema during Ronald Reagan's 1976 and 1980 primary and general election campaigns for president.
"He was proud of his record and sought a true battle over ideas with the GOP establishment and liberal Democrats," Levin writes. "However, his primary and general election opponents over the years – Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, or Walter Mondale – preferred the route Rubio has now taken – distortion and personal smears."
The Rubio campaign, Levin says, has accused Cruz of being anti-Israel, weak on immigration, national security and "even supportive" of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
"And we conservatives are supposedly so stupid we will fall for all of it," he writes, accusing "Republican establishment media" of dong "the bidding of the Rubio campaign."
Rubio "would be wise to focus" on what he's done "for conservatives on national security or any other issue," Levin writes.
"But this is where he may be having some difficulty," he adds. "His record is thin."