MIAMI -- U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio entered the presidential race Monday by offering the nation a younger generation of leadership that breaks free of ideas "stuck in the 20th century," a jab at both Democratic favorite Hillary Rodham Clinton and his one-time Republican mentor, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Surrounded by his wife and four young children and standing in front of a banner that proclaimed "A New American Century" -- a refrain he repeated throughout his kickoff speech -- the 43-year-old Cuban-American used his first turn as a Republican presidential candidate to take on two of America's political dynasties. In doing so, he bet heavily on the electorate's frustrations with Washington and his ability to change how his party is seen by voters.
"This election is not just about what laws we are going to pass," Rubio told at crowd of nearly 1,000 at his evening rally. "It is a generational choice about what kind of country we will be."
He said it's also a choice between the haves and have-nots, nodding to his own upbringing by working-class parents. "I live an exceptional country where the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same dreams and the same future as those who come from power and privilege."
Earlier in the day at a breakfast for bundlers of donations to his campaign at the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay, Rubio said people were eager to look to the future.
The first-term Republican from Florida spoke to his top donors and told them that many families feel the American dream is slipping away and young Americans face unequal opportunities. He is banking on the hope that he, alone among many GOP rivals, can make inroads with groups that have long eluded Republicans -- young people, members of minority groups and the less affluent.
"I feel uniquely qualified to not just make that argument, but to outline the policies that we need to have in order to achieve it," he said on the donor call.
In his televised speech, he told supporters, "The time has come for our generation to lead the way toward a new American century."
Rubio's remarks came as Clinton was traveling to Iowa on her first trip as a candidate. Her entrance into the race with an online video Sunday afternoon has taken some attention from Rubio's splash into the race.
But Rubio saw an opportunity to cast the presidential contest as one between a fresh face representing a new generation of leadership and familiar faces harking back decades -- namely, the 62-year-old Bush and the 67-year-old Clinton.
"While our people and economy are pushing the boundaries of the 21st century, too many of our leaders and their ideas are stuck in the 20th century," Rubio said to applause. He added that America won't succeed by "going back to the leaders and ideas of the past. We must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them."
The swipe at Bush was implied; with Clinton, he was more direct.
"Just yesterday, a leader from yesterday began a campaign for president by promising to take us back to yesterday," Rubio said to jeers. "Yesterday is over, and we are never going back."
Supporters began lining up in 87-degree heat three hours before the public kickoff at Freedom Tower, the Miami landmark that was the first stop for tens of thousands of fleeing Cuban exiles during the 1960s and 1970s.
Kelly Steele, 50, and her 18-year-old son wore tie-dyed Rubio T-shirts. "We have had a lot of Bushes," Kelly Steele said, comparing Rubio to a youthful John Kennedy.
"Sen. Rubio kind of reminds me of JFK," she said. "He's got that energy and desire and momentum and excitement."
Olga Golden also joined Monday's events to hear from Rubio.
"What I really like was his coming up from nothing to something," said Golden, who immigrated to the United States as a young child with her parents from Cuba and is now a speech therapist in Miami.
"I'm hoping he can bring people together," she said. "And he's very cute, too."
Outside Freedom Tower, some immigration activists protested against Rubio's announcement.
Hours before Rubio's rally, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, criticized Rubio as just another establishment Republican with no new ideas.
"He's a follower, peddling the same tired Republican playbook," she told reporters. "Marco Rubio has pandered to the Republican base throughout his whole career."
Rubio served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2000 to 2008, eventually becoming speaker. He was elected to the Senate in 2010.
To counter views of him as a neophyte, Rubio has outlined specific policy proposals both on foreign and domestic issues. He plans future presentations as his campaign gets underway.
Rubio also is expected to campaign on themes that emphasize American greatness and the American dream, an optimistic, aspirational message that he outlined in his newly released book, American Dreams.
He is also angling to become the youthful face of a party that skews older and has struggled to attract young voters, blacks and Hispanics. Many mainstream Republicans hope that a Cuban-American who speaks fluent Spanish can help draw Hispanic voters, a growing demographic that will be critical during the general election, into the party.
As a member of the Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees, Rubio has used his time in the Senate to position himself in stark contrast with Paul, who prefers a more restrained approach to military intervention. After his announcement in Miami, Rubio planned to travel back to Washington to attend a Foreign Relations Committee meeting today on legislation that would require Congress to weigh in on any nuclear deal reached with Iran.
But his work on immigration -- one of his biggest achievements in the Senate -- illustrates the delicate balance Rubio will have to strike to make it through his party's nominating process. In 2013, Rubio was part of a bipartisan group of senators that drafted a broad immigration bill that included a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants already in the country.
He has since distanced himself from the proposal, saying he believes that any immigration overhaul must start with securing the nation's southern border and proceed step by step. But his original legislation enraged the right, which saw it as amnesty, while many liberals and immigration groups thought he had not gone far enough and were frustrated with his position.
By making his announcement in Florida, the state Bush governed for eight years, Rubio signaled he planned to cede nothing to Bush, his former mentor. Bush was governor while Rubio was speaker of the Florida House.
Because he is less known than some of his rivals, he will need to introduce himself to as many voters as possible, particularly in the early nominating states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
On Friday, Rubio plans to do just that, heading to New Hampshire for a day of meetings with activists, business leaders and students, as well as the local media. That evening, he is to kick off the state party's two-day leadership summit of 2016 hopefuls, speaking at a dinner in Nashua, N.H.
Rubio is the third major GOP contender to declare himself a candidate, after Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Rubio or Cruz could make history as the nation's first Hispanic president.
Information for this article was contributed by Philip Elliott and Brendan Farrington of The Associated Press; by Ashley Parker, Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times; and by Lisa Mascaro of Tribune News Service.
A Section on 04/14/2015