Sunday Talk Show Roundup: The Surrogates Are Loosed
The Sunday shows were filled with prospective and declared Republican candidates for president and with surrogates for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who announced her candidacy a week ago.
Here is a sampling of each side.
The Democrats:
On “This Week” on ABC, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, a Democrat, said Senator Marco Rubio had played politics as usual by letting criticism from the Republican base drive him away from a comprehensive immigration overhaul effort that he had supported.
“I don’t think that he necessarily represents some generational change,” Ms. McCaskill said. “It sounds like, to me, old-style politics.”
The senator, who endorsed Barack Obama over Mrs. Clinton during the 2008 primaries, said, “I am glad I don’t have that kind of tough choice this time.”
“This is not a hard choice,” she said, “and I don’t think it will be a hard choice for America.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Terry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia and a friend of Mrs. Clinton’s, said she would focus on the economy “of tomorrow.” And he defended her over a gaffe she made in 2014 while promoting her book “Hard Choices,” when she told an interviewer that she and her husband were “dead broke” when they left the White House.
“I cannot tell you the distress in that family at that time with all the issues and all the legal fees, banks refusing to even give them a mortgage,” Mr. McAuliffe said.
“So listen, people go through tough financial times,” he said. “You remember, I mean, Hillary’s mother, she was abandoned. So that’s why Hillary’s always been a fighter that a child needs someone to be out there and to be a guardian for them. She came up in a middle-class family.”
One Democrat expressed admiration for Mrs. Clinton, but was an advocate for himself instead.
Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland who has said he is seriously considering a run for president, told Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that his executive experience would make him a better president than Mrs. Clinton.
The Republicans:
Also on “Face the Nation,” Mr. Rubio talked about his newly declared candidacy and a range of issues, including same-sex marriage.
“States have always regulated marriage,” Mr. Rubio said. “And if a state wants to have a different definition, you should petition the state legislature and have a political debate. I don’t think courts should be making that decision. And I don’t believe same-sex marriage is a constitutional right.”
He added: “I also don’t believe that your sexual preferences are a choice for the vast and enormous majority of people.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said he would decide in May whether to run in the Republican primary; and on “Meet the Press,” Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said he also was seriously considering a campaign.