LAST WEEK, MARCO RUBIO PASSED UP AN OPPORTUNITY TO PANDER EVEN HARDER ON CUBA

On Friday, Chris Christie responded to the Cuba thaw:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is urging President Obama to demand that Cuba return convicted police-killer Joanne Chesimard before he proceeds with efforts to improve diplomatic relations with that country.

Chesimard was found guilty of killing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973 before escaping from prison and fleeing to Cuba. The 67-year-old Chesimard has since been provided safe haven by the Cuban government.

“Cuba’s provision of safe harbor to Chesimard by providing political asylum to a convicted cop killer ... is an affront to every resident of our state, our country, and in particular, the men and women of the New Jersey State Police,” Christie wrote. “I urge you to demand the immediate return of Chesimard before any further consideration of restoration of diplomatic relations with the Cuban government.”

Christie, a Republican, sent the letter to Obama on Friday....

The FBI has designated Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur) as a domestic terrorist....

Because the trooper was shot in Jersey, this is a local story for Christie -- but please note that Christie was the first presidential aspirant to mention Chesimard because Marco Rubio left the issue on the table for him. Last week, Rubio was all over the media talking about Cuba. He had the floor. He could have beaten Christie to this and made Christie appear to be saying, "Me, too." And it would have been good politics -- remember that the Republican base always thinks the radicals of the late sixties and early seventies are on the verge of making a major comeback and subjugating all True Patriots; when GOP base voters have nightmares, they look like the Chesimard story:

Assata Olugbala Shakur (née JoAnne Deborah Byron ... ), whose married name was Chesimard, ... is an African-American activist, escaped convicted murderer, and member of the former Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA)....

In May 1973, Shakur was involved in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, for which she was accused of killing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and grievously assaulting Trooper James Harper....

Shakur was incarcerated in several prisons in the '70s. She escaped from prison in 1979 and has been living in Cuba, in political asylum, since 1984....

In 1998, Shakur referred to herself as a "20th century escaped slave." ...

(The right is looking at this weekend's police murders and thinking that that era's radicalism has made a complete comeback, instead of seeing one mentally unstable guy responding to anti-cop anger.)

Fox's Greg Gutfeld and Townhall's Katie Pavlich were talking about Chesimard the day after Obama made his announcement on the subject of Cuba normalization. So why didn't Rubio pounce?

Well, maybe because Chesimard was the step-aunt and godmother of Tupac Shakur -- a favorite rapper of Rubio's, according to a 2013 BuzzFeed interview. Oops!

Opportunity missed....