Marco Rubio's Wife: A Partner Ready To Puncture His Ego

Marco Rubios Wife: A Partner Ready to
Puncture His Ego
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and his wife, Jeanette, in Miami earlier this year at the launch of Mr.
Rubio's presidential campaign. Mrs. Rubio is seen as a pivotal figure in her husband's evolution.
The Hawaiian couples retreat was marketed as a chance to receive

godly counsel on marriage, and it featured daily seminars on the art
of apologizing, the perils of miscommunication and the power of
expressing emotion. Admit your anger, read the slide from one
presentation.
Sitting quietly in the audience, absorbing it all, were a couple whose
identities aroused unusual interest: Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and
his wife, Jeanette. Participants like Alfredo Romero eagerly sought them
out, curious to understand their motivation for attending.
Mr. Rubio, a Republican who would eventually become a candidate for

president, expressed a common desire: To be on the same page as his
wife, Mr. Romero recalled. In a playful nod to that quest, the Rubios
wore rival T-shirts. Mr. Right, read his. Mrs. Always Right, declared
hers.
Their participation in the 2014 retreat in Maui embodied powerful, recurring
themes in their lives: a Christian faith that infuses almost every aspect of
their relationship and Mrs. Rubios determination to create a haven of family
amid the chaotic and hypercompetitive world that Mr. Rubio inhabits.
Photo
Jeanette Dousdebes in the 1993 yearbook for South Miami Senior High School, from which
Marco Rubio graduated in 1989. They dated during his college years before marrying.
Friends describe Mrs. Rubio, who met the future lawmaker when both were
teenagers, as a pivotal figure in his evolution a grounding, disciplined and
at times corrective influence who in many ways ushered Mr. Rubio into
adulthood.
She was the rare spouse who regularly traveled from South Florida to the
states remote capital, Tallahassee, when Mr. Rubio was a state
representative, reminding him of obligations to family in a city where latenight deal making and drinking were common.
It was refreshing, said State Representative Dennis K. Baxley, a friend and
colleague who frequently spotted the Rubios children inside the legislative
offices.
When her husband ran for the United States Senate in 2010, Mrs. Rubio
communicated a message to his staff: Whenever humanly possible, his travel
schedule should bring him home at night for family time, aides recalled.
And her social conservatism, friends and colleagues said, has deepened Mr.
Rubios own: Many of them detect Mrs. Rubios influence on her husbands
outspoken opposition to abortion in almost all cases, a potential lure for
Republicans in a primary but a liability in a general election against a
Democrat.
She has been a big force for good in his life, said Nelson Diaz, a former
aide to Mr. Rubio in the Florida Legislature who remains close to the couple.
She has helped make Marco who he is.
Mrs. Rubio, a 42-year-old mother of four school-age children, who attends
weekly Bible studies and works for a wealthy donor to her husbands
presidential campaign, has long bristled at the popular description of herself
as a bubbly former cheerleader who married the star of her high schools
football team.
In reality, she never really fit that description. Her stint as a cheerleader for
the Miami Dolphins, a job that required grueling tryouts, practice sessions
four nights a week and strict weight monitoring, lasted just a year. And Mrs.
Rubio, who joined the team at the suggestion of her sister, already a
Dolphins cheerleader, avoided the hard-partying temptations of the
profession. Few were surprised when she decided to leave the squad.
Mrs. Rubio at an August rally for her husband in Cleveland. She is rarely seen on the campaign
trail.CreditAndrew
Harnik/Associated Press
She wasnt that cheerleader type, said Natalie Vickers, who was on
the team with her in 1997. She was more introverted than 95 percent
of the team.
Mr. Rubios campaign declined to make either Mr. or Mrs. Rubio
available for an interview, and has asked many close relatives not to
speak with the news media. But more than 20 people who know the
couple spoke about Mrs. Rubio in interviews over the past month.
Politics, friends said, was something that Mrs. Rubio tolerated but
never relished. As its tentacles reached deeper into her life, starting in
the late 1990s, she sought to tame it with firm boundaries and clear
expectations for her role. (Election Day appearances? Fine. Speeches?
No.)
Her mother had divorced twice before Jeanette Dousdebes was 18, a
searing experience that friends said left her fiercely protective of her
own nuclear family. Online scrapbooks, designed by Mrs. Rubio over
the years, pay tribute to motherhood and sisterhood. Children, read
one, featuring a photo of her oldest daughter, are the flowers in Gods
garden.
Her mother, who owns a small transportation business, and her father,
who worked at a printing company and did fumigation work, emigrated
from Colombia. They enrolled Jeanette in South Miami Senior High
School, Mr. Rubios alma mater. Mr. Rubio (class of 1989) met his future
wife (class of 1993) at the home of a classmate, and they dated
throughout his college years. After they were married in 1998, Mrs.
Rubio became pregnant and left the International Fine Arts College,
now Miami International University of Art & Design, without a degree.
By Mr. Rubios own admission, his escalating ambitions first for local
office, then the State Legislature, eventually the Senate have
repeatedly clashed with his wifes yearning for simplicity.
My political career, he once wrote, had deprived her of the settled,
predictable family life she longed for.
When Mr. Rubio was asked to help oversee the South Florida operations
of Bob Doles presidential campaign in 1996, his future wife bluntly
confronted him about the long hours and constant travel.
It feels like youre cheating on me, she told him. (His mistress, he
wrote: politics.)
Despite her early misgivings, she has carved out a role in his
campaigns as a gatekeeper and moral compass. Longtime associates
who felt marginalized during Mr. Rubios Senate race at times called on
Mrs. Rubio to help navigate a candidacy that was increasingly overseen
by out-of-town professionals, according to former campaign staff
members.
In a political world that can be transactional, she prizes loyalty: In
2012, at a time when Mr. Rubio faced pressure to distance himself from
then-Representative David Rivera, a longtime friend and ally who faced
multipleinvestigations into his political activities, Mrs. Rubio defiantly
showed up at a polling station outside Miami, without her husband, to
campaign for Mr. Riveras re-election.
In several cases, her passions have become Senator Rubios causes.
After learning about the depth of the youth sex trade in Florida, Mrs.
Rubio pushed her husband to confront the issue in the Senate, where
he co-sponsored legislation to protect victims and crack down on the
secret networks.
She was bringing their clout and weight, and all their old friends, to
bear on this, said Claudia C. Kitchens, the executive director of Kristi
House, a Miami group that fights childhood sex abuse. Mrs. Rubio, she
said, brought her husband to the shelter. She wanted to make him
understand, Ms. Kitchens said.
Mrs. Rubio has built her schedule largely around her children, who
range from 8 to 15 years old, shuttling them to school and sporting
events. One afternoon last spring, she stood watch outside the familys
home in West Miami, leaning against the bumper of her S.U.V. as one
of her daughters ran laps up and down the street.
But she has a found a new career in midlife. Shortly after Mr. Rubio was
elected to the Senate in late 2010, Mrs. Rubio started working for
Norman Braman, a billionaire auto dealer in Miami who has
long nurtured Mr. Rubios career with advice, financial support and
campaign contributions. It was an eyebrow-raising arrangement: Until
Mr. Rubio was sworn in as a senator, Mr. Braman had employed him as
a lawyer, making the politically active auto magnate an unusually
powerful financial force in the Rubios lives.
The part-time position, which pays her about $54,000 a year, involves
researching and vetting nonprofit groups that seek donations from Mr.
Bramans charitable foundation, and has given Mrs. Rubio new
prominence and clout in South Florida.

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Marco Rubio's Wife: A Partner Ready To Puncture His Ego

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Marco Rubios Wife: A Partner Ready to

Puncture His Ego

The Hawaiian couples retreat was marketed as a chance to receive

Mr. Rubio, a Republican who would eventually become a candidate for

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