The first sign of trouble, oddly enough, came from Rick Santorum. Shortly after the failed presidential candidate endorsed Marco Rubio, Santrorum was asked on MSNBC to name even one accomplishment from the Florida senator's record. Santorum made a valiant effort, but he couldn't think of anything.
"I guess it's hard to say there are accomplishments." Santorum conceded a few days before the New Hampshire primary.
Two weeks later, another notable Rubio backer, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) was asked the same question. Inhofe pointed to a military spending bill the Florida senator voted for -- which didn't make any sense since Rubio didn't show up for work when the Senate passed the bill in question.
One of Marco Rubio's newest congressional endorsers struggled to point to one specific thing he has seen over the course of the last year from the Florida senator that, as MSNBC's Thomas Roberts asked, "demonstrates presidential character." Not only that, but he also called some of the Rubio's past actions "frustrating."
It would have been bad enough for Rep. Cresent Hardy (R-Nev.), who endorsed Rubio ahead of this week's Nevada caucuses, to come up empty when defending the Floridian's record. But during his MSNBC appearance, the congressman added, "As far as [Rubio's] policies in the past, I know that he's done some things that even have been a little frustrating for an individual like myself at times."
Hardy did applaud the "Gang of Eight" immigration reform package, which is the one thing Rubio actually worked on, but which Rubio soon after abandoned in order to appeal to the Republican Party's far-right base.
In other words, we saw yet another one of Rubio's congressional supporters come up empty when trying to explain why their preferred candidate deserves a promotion to the world's most powerful office.
John Kasich's campaign, hoping to exploit Rubio's recent failures at the ballot box, was quick to highlight the interview. "It's weird to send surrogates out without them being able to list one achievement but at least they are being honest," Trent Duffy, the Kasich campaign's national spokesman, told Politico.
Presumably, the Rubio campaign would distribute a list of his successes to his supporters before they appeared on national television, but it appears there is no list because there are no accomplishments.