Months after Silicon Valley’s richest man pumped millions into the super PAC backing Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, the Florida senator is once again climbing in the polls.
The $3 million that Larry Ellison gave to the Conservative Solutions PAC in May and June is by far the largest commitment anyone in California has made so far to a 2016 presidential candidate, once again putting the colorful Oracle founder in a league of his own. And it’s possible he and others have anted up even more since the Federal Election Commission’s last reporting deadline on June 30.
It’s testament to the power one person with an outsized ego and checkbook to match can wield in an era of unlimited contributions that began in 2010 with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.
So what does a 71-year-old tech billionaire see in a 44-year-old senator who learned his conservative patriotism on his Cuban-American granddad’s knee?
Ellison declined to be interviewed for this article. But in the 2004 Ellison biography “Softwar,” author Mathew Symonds quoted Ellison as saying he admired tough, complex — even contradictory — “men of destiny” such as Winston Churchill, Douglas MacArthur and Robert Kennedy.
Churchill and MacArthur “had great intellectual and moral integrity,” the book quoted Ellison as saying. “They had the courage to do what they believed to be right rather than what was popular or politically expedient at the time. … I admire risk takers.”
Nobody is saying Rubio is another Churchill, but “risk taker” describes him well, said Susan MacManus, a political expert at the University of South Florida.
When he launched his 2010 Senate campaign, few gave Rubio any chance of winning, yet he wound up defeating the sitting governor, Charlie Crist, and Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., MacManus noted. And few thought he would run for president this year if his fellow Floridian and political mentor Jeb Bush was running. Yet Rubio leaped — and has now overtaken Bush in the polls.
Ellison likely admires that “against all odds” spirit, MacManus said, while also recognizing that Rubio’s theme “has always been ‘a changing world’ and ‘changing technology’ ” in an effort to attract millennial voters.
“He appeals to the demographics that the high-tech industry is seeking,” she said.
Indeed, Rubio’s platform has plenty that might appeal to a Silicon Valley conservative. He opposes regulations that impede innovation, decries the “burdensome” taxation of digital goods and services, and pledges to ensure that Internet access remains tax-free. He also wants to cut the maximum tax rate for all businesses to 25 percent.
Ellison might appreciate Rubio’s call for lowering international trade barriers, given Oracle’s opportunities abroad, said tech industry analyst Rob Enderle.
Still, Ellison might hang back now until Rubio regains more ground.
“Larry emulates (Donald) Trump in one area: He doesn’t invest in people he doesn’t think are going to win,” Enderle said. “Rubio is in one of the top positions in the second tier, but I have my doubts about whether Larry will invest in him again until he gets back into the first tier.”
Rubio surged from 5.3 percent support among Republicans on Sept. 16 — the day of the second GOP presidential debate — to 9.7 percent now, in third place behind Trump and Ben Carson, according to averages of national polls compiled by RealClearPolitics. But he still isn’t back to where he was in May and June, before the Summer of Trump kicked off in earnest.
Rubio’s standout moment in the second debate came when he responded to the boisterous billionaire’s jibe about candidates speaking Spanish instead of English. That’s when the senator brought up his chats with his grandfather about patriotism.
“He taught me that in Spanish, because it was the language he was most comfortable in. And he became a conservative, even though he got his news in Spanish,” Rubio said. “And so, I do give interviews in Spanish, and here’s why: Because I believe that free enterprise and limited government is the best way to help people who are trying to achieve upward mobility. And if they get their news in Spanish, I want them to hear that directly from me — not from a translator at Univision.”
That’s the kind of brash strength with which the world’s fifth-richest man Ellison might identify.
Ellison owns — and flies — two fighter jets. He reportedly spent at least $115 million on his sailing team’s 2013 America’s Cup victory. His 23-acre Woodside estate, modeled after a 16th-century Japanese imperial palace, cost an estimated $200 million to build. And in 2012, he paid $300 million for 98 percent of Lanai, Hawaii’s sixth-largest island.
It’s a portfolio worthy of Tony “Iron Man” Stark — a character whom actor Robert Downey Jr. reportedly modeled in part on Ellison’s flamboyance — or perhaps worthy of an island-buying James Bond villain.
Nor is Ellison the only billionaire megadonor in Rubio’s corner.
Norman Braman, a Miami car dealer and former Philadelphia Eagles owner, gave $5 million to Conservative Solutions. And Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who dumped at least $93 million into 2012’s elections, recently met privately with Rubio and might endorse him soon, Politico reported.
But Ellison’s fortune, estimated by Forbes at $47.1 billion, far exceeds those of Adelson ($27.2 billion) and Braman ($1.95 billion) combined. No matter what “gravitas, or wisdom beyond his years” Ellison might see in Rubio, that huge bankroll must be what Rubio sees in Ellison, said Adam Goodman, a Tampa-based GOP strategist.
“That’s probably a phone call that Marco will always be returning,” he said.
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
