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Reluctant senator and strikingly ineffective presidential candidate Marco Rubio still has a decision to make. He can hold true to his previous word and not run for re-election because, well, he's vowed up and down that he wouldn't do that—or he can break that previous vow and mount a frantic last-minute bid to keep his day job.

Since nobody truly expects a conservative politician to keep a consistent position, most Marco Rubio fans have been presuming he would flip-flop himself into mounting a re-election bid. Competing Republicans like David Jolly and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera have either stepped out of the way or assured Rubio they would. So why's it taking so long for Rubio to decide?

This right here would be why:

“Rubio is going to have some challenges to overcome. Carlos Beruff, who is a Trump knock-off, is one of them," Mac Stipanovich, a Florida-based Republican strategist told TPM. "Marco will be facing a Mini-me of the guy he lost to badly not too long ago."

You might know Beruff as the Republican candidate who referred to the current American president as an "animal." Calling him a Mini-Trump is perhaps understating the case. The wealthy blowhard Beruff has no intention of stepping aside for the faux-moderate Rubio, not when what America really needs in the Senate is another rich, xenophobic Loud Guy.

Hillary Clinton has now delivered two general election speeches that gave her the opportunity to get lost in the policy weeds: One on foreign policy several weeks ago, and a speech this week on the economy. In both cases, she has managed to relate her sometimes "wonky" approach to campaigning back to the everyday concerns of average Americans. For instance, here's Clinton plugging her plan to create more jobs with higher wages while roasting Trump for his utter lack of policy specifics:

It is a simple formula, higher wages lead to more demand which leads to more jobs with higher wages. And, I have laid out a detailed agenda to jumpstart this virtuous cycle. You can go to my website hilaryclinton.com and read all about it. I do admit it is a little wonky. But I have this old fashion idea that if you're running for president, you should say what you want to do, how you're going to pay for it, and how you'll get it done. I actually sweat the specifics because they matter. Whether one more kid gets health care may just be a detail in Washington, but it's all that matters to that family worrying about their child."

Far from getting upstaged by Trump’s flashy ignorance, Clinton appears to be finding her sweet spot somewhere between the mundane details of governance and the soaring rhetoric of great orators like Barack Obama. It turns out that running against a total windbag has allowed her to elevate major themes people can hold on to, rather than wallowing in the mind-numbing intricacies of how to accomplish those policy goals.

On Tuesday, she repeatedly talked about the broad issues of creating higher-paying jobs, increasing the affordability of health care and college, and decreasing student debt. These issues resonated broadly throughout the Democratic primary and we are now seeing how Bernie's candidacy helped shape the general election candidate that Hillary is becoming.

Yet Clinton still managed some nice zingers for voters to revel in, noting that Trump's as "dangerous" on domestic issues as he is on foreign policy. "Just like he shouldn't have his finger on the button," she quipped, "he shouldn't have his hands on our economy."

Looks like election year pressures are getting to New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte. On Monday, Ayotte departed from her usual practice of carrying water for the gun lobby and voted with most Democrats to prevent people on the terrorist watch list from getting guns.

Gabby Giffords’ PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions, has been hammering Ayotte with ads over her gun votes. Those votes include a no vote on … preventing people on the terrorist watch list from getting guns. Ayotte also voted against expanded background checks in 2013, following the shooting deaths of 20 school children and six staff members and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School, then released an ad pretending she’d supported expanded background checks.

Ayotte was feeling the heat, in other words, and now she’s been pushed all the way from misleading ads to an actual vote. But the measure still didn’t pass because members of Ayotte’s party blocked it, and the minute she stops being scared of the November election she’s likely to be back to helping vote down even the smallest effort to make it the slightest bit more difficult to get guns. There were 406,496 gun deaths in the U.S. between 2001 and 2013. Her past record and the likelihood gun violence will continue unabated make Ayotte complicit in the next 406,496. 

Please give $3 to help upgrade New Hampshire’s senator from Kelly Ayotte to Maggie Hassan.

Republican Ohio Sen. Rob Portman has some deep thoughts on the failure of gun control measures in the Senate Monday.

"I think there is a consensus, based on these votes, that you know, we should stop terrorists or suspected terrorists from being able to get a gun, and that we should have a due process to keep people from being on a list that they're not properly on," Portman said.

Good to know that you know there's consensus on keeping guns from terrorists, senator. That's really comforting, given that that 406,496 people were killed by guns on U.S. soil between 2001 and 2013. I guess it's just too much to ask that this consensus actually be translated into action.

It would also be good, you know, to have a due process to keep people who shouldn't be on the list off of the list in the first place. Why should it take concern about guns to get some due process into the list? Yeah, I know, silly question. The NRA.

Please give $3 to help Ted Strickland send Rob Portman packing.

Seriously.

On Monday night, the Trump campaign filed its monthly Federal Election Commission campaign disclosure report for May. The headline was that his fundraising was anemic and he finished the month with just $1.3 million on hand, a pittance for a presidential nominee.

But buried in Trump’s 1699-page report was something much weirder. The Trump campaign made $35,000 in payments to an entity called “Draper Sterling” for “web advertising.” … Draper and Sterling, of course, are the fictional names of the two lead characters in Mad Men, the hit AMC show about advertising.

You may think it strange that Trump paid $35,000 to fictional characters. But it seems that Draper Sterling did briefly exist, and the true nature of their business is one Trump understands well.

The only other apparent public mention of Draper Sterling effectively accuses it of being a scam that helps perpetrate legally questionable activity.

It comes from an FEC complaint against an entity called “Patriots For America,” a federal super PAC seeking to influence the Missouri governor’s race. The complaint, filed on May 12 by an economics professor named Aaron Hedlund, alleges that Patriots For America listed no receipts or disbursements on its FEC filings, yet sent out direct mail.

Donald Trump’s disclosure shows $45 million in loans to himself, all of which have a due date of the end of this year. It has $6 million worth of payments directly to Trump-owned companies. And it shows $45,000 in salary paid out directly to Donald J. Trump over the course of a month. How many candidates take a salary from their campaign that works out to more than $500,000 a year? How many candidates take a salary at all?

So, sure. Fantasy organization that’s been outed as scam artists illegally spamming mailboxes in Missouri? Why not?

I know, I know, some of you “don’t trust her,” but given opportunities to backtrack from primary promises, Hillary Clinton is actually doing the opposite—she’s doubling down. Some choice bits from her speech today:

I believe we can compete and win in the global economy. And reject any agreements like the partnership that don't meet my high bar for rising wages. 

“The partnership” is obviously TPP. Clinton took too long during campaign season to come out against it (a factor in Bernie Sanders’ rise, I believe). I still believe it had more to do with trying not to embarrass the president than any real support for the trade deal, but whether cynical or not, her new position has held. 

[Trump] has no ideas how to strengthen medicare or expand social security and his tax plan. 

The campaign to expand Social Security appeared to be a pipe dream when a handful of bloggers (really, Atrios) started pushing it four years ago. It was an idea that was anathema to the Third Way crowd as recently as late 2015. And yet here we are, barely six months later, with our “establishment” presidential nominee proudly supporting it.  

ABC’s This Week may have dumped homophobe Tony Perkins from its pundit lineup last weekend following the Orlando shooting, but Donald Trump hasn't. Among the 1,000-some social conservative Christian leaders Trump's wooing in New York Tuesday are a stable of folks who have made it their life's work to demonize LGBT people across the globe. David Badash has a glimpse of the lineup:

James Dobson, who founded both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. Tony Perkins, who turned Dobson's Family Research Council into a certified anti-gay hate group. Tim Wildmon, head of the anti-gay hate group American Family Association. Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America. Televangelist Pat Robertson, who blamed 9/11 on gay people. Ralph Reed, who headed Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, and now runs the Faith & Freedom Coalition. Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Family Leader president Bob Vander Plaats. American Values president Gary Bauer. Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

And let's not forget anti-gay preacher Harry Jackson, who has repeatedly railed against same-sex marriage, once calling it “a Satanic plot to destroy our seed.” In fact, it just so happens that Jackson and Dobson were both among the select few "Christian" leaders who were slated to ask Trump questions. Dobson's focus was religious liberty, while Jackson was fixated on—you guessed it—marriage (as in traditional, hetero marriage—not that same-sex stuff).

Considering how badly Trump needs the community’s support, it will be interesting to see if he ever utters the letters “LGBT” again. If he doesn’t, that will be a sign that Trump is bowing to evangelical wishes. If he does, it will likely say something about Trump’s lack of impulse control.

Now that Donald Trump’s campaign expenditures are available for all to see, it’s possible to pick up a few interesting tidbits. Not only is the campaign down to just over $1 million on hand, but some of the money that has already been spent has gone down a familiar funnel—leading right back to Trump.

When Trump flies, he uses his airplane. When he campaigns, he often chooses his properties or his own Trump Tower in New York City, which serves as headquarters. His campaign even buys Trump bottled water and Trump wine.

That last action is pretty interesting, considering that Trump’s water is generally only available at his own resorts. But then, Donald is always willing to make an exception for Donald.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has been on the campaign trail for a year now, and federal finance reports detail a campaign unafraid to co-mingle political and business endeavors in an unprecedented way — even as he is making appeals for donations. …

Wealthy political candidates in the past have walled off their business from their campaigns, but Trump embraces his companies. Public documents indicate his revenue has risen along with his presidential aspirations.

The details of Trump’s expenses fit right in with previous information. It once again shows that Trump’s much-touted $55 million personal investment in his campaign is an overstatement, since some of that money is in the form of a loan that Trump can collect (assuming he can get someone else to put money into his sinking ship) and a good chunk of what he’s spent gets recycled into his own companies. 

All of which just makes the hidden contents of Trump’s taxes more interesting. When you consider the frugality of his primary campaign, how carefully he’s routed money back to his own pockets, and how he’s allowed his coffers to empty without making a move to refill them, it raises a serious question: Can Trump really put up the kind of money he needs for a campaign? While he is intent on telling the GOP he can go it alone, is Donald Trump broke again?

Hillary Clinton is in Columbus, Ohio, where she'll question Donald Trump's ability to actually be a steward of the nation's economy. Given today's news on Trump's stewardship of his own campaign finances, she's got plenty of fodder. Here's her message for the day:

"If we put Donald Trump behind the steering wheel of the economy, he is very likely to drive us off the cliff," said Clinton campaign senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan, previewing her remarks.

You can watch the speech at this link and follow along in this liveblog. (Note: updates have been moved below.)

After yet another failed Congressional vote on gun safety measures Monday, it's important to remember who does approve tighter gun laws: Voters. When actual voters (not lawmakers) are given the chance to weigh in directly on measures that strengthen gun safety laws, they usually approve them.

That was true in Colorado following the Columbine shooting in 1999. Even though state lawmakers blocked a bill early in 2000 that would have required background checks at gun shows, Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved the measure at the ballot box later that year with 70 percent of the vote.

The same is true of Florida voters, despite the fact that lawmakers have essentially given gun owners carte blanche in the "Gunshine" state. Not only did Florida lawmakers pass the first “stand your ground” law in 2005, affirming a person’s right to defend themselves with deadly force, lawmakers also made Florida the original “shall issue” state in 1987, meaning local authorities are required to issue permits to carry a concealed weapon as long as the applicant doesn’t fall within a prohibited category (a convicted felon, for example).

Yet when Floridians have voted directly on gun issues, they have twice approved ballot measures restricting gun rights: In 1990, they approved a mandatory three-day waiting period for handgun purchases; and in 1998, they gave local jurisdictions the option of requiring background checks on private gun sales. Similar to what happened in Colorado, momentum for the ’98 measure came after a felon fatally shot three police officers and a 4-year-old boy.

Other examples exist, including Missouri voters in 1999 rejecting a measure that would have made the state a "shall issue" state (GOP lawmakers later overrode the will of the people in 2003); Oregon voters in 2000 voting to "close the gun show loophole;" and more recently, Washington voters approved universal background checks in 2014. 

This is not an exhaustive list and gun safety ballot measures don’t occur all that frequently, but these examples tell an important story: While lawmakers beholden to the National Rifle Association often reject gun safety measures, their constituents are much more likely to vote for them.

Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt thought that cherry-picking some mass killings and saying “radical Islam” would be enough to undo any argument in favor of stronger gun laws and devastate his Democratic challenger, Jason Kander. Not so much. Kander had this response to Blunt’s accusation that “Despite Ft. Hood, Boston & Orlando, @JasonKander won’t acknowledge the root of threats we face: radical Islam.”

The argument about semantics is a stupid one—Republicans running around screaming “SAY RADICAL ISLAM” while the reality is that, between 2001 and 2013, 3,380 Americans were killed by terrorism while 406,496 were killed by guns—but Blunt shouldn’t have wanted any part of this argument. Does he really believe that the “R” beside his name makes him the winner any time terrorism is invoked? And does Blunt really want to give Kander a chance to highlight his time in Afghanistan in comparison to Blunt’s three Vietnam-era draft deferments? Way to give Kander an opening there, genius.

Please give $3 to help Jason Kander boot Roy Blunt.