America
Republicans in US begin to set tone for primary debates
Washington, June 19
Three Republican presidential nominees spoke at a forum here setting the tone for debates preceding the primaries in August.
Senators
Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz spoke at the Road to Majority
conference in Washington on Thursday, organised by Faith and Freedom,
which is set to receive another Republican presidential candidate,
ex-Florida governor Jeb Bush, on Friday, Efe news agency reported.
Rubio
emphasised the need to revitalise the middle class, a topic, experts
say, will dominate the election campaign and Republican television
debates.
The Cuban-American believes it is possible to achieve the universal dream of a better life.
To
highlight his point, he gave the example of his parents who emigrated
from Cuba and worked in the hotel industry to build their lives.
"Today
it's easy. I'm in a hotel banquet room, which is what my father did for
many years as a bartender... It's a reminder to me and hopefully to our
audience that so much of what I've been able to do in this life -- the
opportunities that I've had -- has been directly the result of the
experience that they felt in this country," said Rubio.
A group of illegal immigrants boycotted Rubio's address as it did not touch upon immigration reform.
The
immigrants, some of whom have been granted temporary respite under US
President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration, interrupted
Rubio yelling, "Protect DACA, implement DAPA."
Obama launched the
DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, programme to provide
relief for young undocumented migrants who were brought to the US as
children and DAPA, or Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, which is
directed at parents of US citizens or permanent residents.
The
immigration debate, stalled in the face of the suspension of the above
programmes by a federal judge and the Congress's unwillingness to
approve a comprehensive reform to legalise the 11 million illegal
immigrants, is something the Republican candidates hope to avoid in the
primaries.
Another presidential aspirant with Cuban roots,
Senator Ted Cruz, said the evangelical Christian voters were key to a
Republican win in the 2016 elections.
According to data, however, it was the Hispanic vote that had proved decisive in Obama's 2012 win.
"There
are roughly 90 million self-described evangelical Christians in the US
Of those, only 50 percent are registered to vote. Of those, about half
are showing up and voting," he said.
Senator Rand Paul spoke
about taking away power from the government and giving it back to the
people, rhetoric that sets him apart from the 11 other Republican
presidential candidates.