New York Times (New York Times Magazine): Your parents came to Miami from Cuba in the 1950s. Your dad became a bartender, and your mom worked as a hotel maid, among other jobs. Was it always clear that you wouldn’t follow them into a service job?
The service industry is hard, honorable work, but early on my parents drove it into us that a job is what you do to make a living; a career is when you get paid to do something that you love. They had jobs so I could have a career.
Your official biography emphasized that your parents were political exiles from Castro’s regime. Last year it was reported that in fact they emigrated years before he took power. You said it was an innocent mistake. How did it happen?
All this stuff happened 15 years before I was born, so a lot of it is based on the oral history of the family that kind of recounts their view of their journey here.
Did anyone in your family ever actually say, “We had to escape Castro”?
Ultimately, look, that’s not the way it was discussed in our family or by many people in the exile community. It’s more about a loss of their home country, and the inability to go back to it or be part of it. That was a deep part of our upbringing, growing up in this community surrounded by people who had lost everything, who had been sent here as young children while their parents stayed behind.
After you became the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, in 2006, your mentor, Jeb Bush, presented you with a sword. What was that about?
Chang is a mythical conservative warrior. From time to time, if there’s a big issue going on, you’d see Jeb say, “I’m going to unleash Chang.” He gave me the sword of Chang.
From which mythology does this conservative warrior hail?
I think it’s a Jeb Bush creation.
In your 2010 Senate race, it came to light that you charged $100,000 on a Republican Party American Express card, almost $14,000 of which was for personal expenses. Since your big issue is financial responsibility, why didn’t you just use another card?
In hindsight, that’s exactly how I would have handled it. I think the problem was a lot of those expenditures were handled by travel agents, and sometimes the accounts got mixed up. The most important thing people need to understand is that the Republican Party never spent a penny on anything that wasn’t Republican Party-related.
Koch Industries, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are among your top career campaign contributors. What do you say to people who believe that they’re investing in you so that you’ll push to overhaul the tax code to their benefit?
People buy into my agenda. I don’t buy into anyone’s agenda. I tell people what I stand for, and the things I’ve stood for were the same at the very beginning, when none of those people were giving me money.
You are a football fanatic, and your wife, Jeanette, was once a Miami Dolphins cheerleader. Coincidence?
I don’t think she did it because I was a fanatic. Her sister was a cheerleader on the squad, and Jeanette decided to try out. She made it but only did it for a year, and we got married the next year. Cheerleaders don’t get paid a lot of money, but they do get two tickets a game. That was pretty good.
Last year, Bill O’Reilly declared that unless you turn it down, you will be the Republican vice-presidential nominee because you’re from Florida and you’re Hispanic. Does it bother you to be seen to be of value because of where you’re from and your ethnic background?
A lot of factors go into choosing a vice-presidential nominee. But by and large the most important qualification is that they’re qualified to be president, and I imagine that’s the process that Newt or Mitt or any of these other guys are going to go through to decide. So I’m flattered by it, and I think people mean it as a compliment.
Will you take it?
I’m not going to be the vice-presidential nominee. There are many reasons, but one of them is because I’m focused on my job in the United States Senate.
Would you bet me $10,000?
I don’t have $10,000 I can afford to lose right now.
The service industry is hard, honorable work, but early on my parents drove it into us that a job is what you do to make a living; a career is when you get paid to do something that you love. They had jobs so I could have a career.
Your official biography emphasized that your parents were political exiles from Castro’s regime. Last year it was reported that in fact they emigrated years before he took power. You said it was an innocent mistake. How did it happen?
All this stuff happened 15 years before I was born, so a lot of it is based on the oral history of the family that kind of recounts their view of their journey here.
Did anyone in your family ever actually say, “We had to escape Castro”?
Ultimately, look, that’s not the way it was discussed in our family or by many people in the exile community. It’s more about a loss of their home country, and the inability to go back to it or be part of it. That was a deep part of our upbringing, growing up in this community surrounded by people who had lost everything, who had been sent here as young children while their parents stayed behind.
After you became the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, in 2006, your mentor, Jeb Bush, presented you with a sword. What was that about?
Chang is a mythical conservative warrior. From time to time, if there’s a big issue going on, you’d see Jeb say, “I’m going to unleash Chang.” He gave me the sword of Chang.
From which mythology does this conservative warrior hail?
I think it’s a Jeb Bush creation.
In your 2010 Senate race, it came to light that you charged $100,000 on a Republican Party American Express card, almost $14,000 of which was for personal expenses. Since your big issue is financial responsibility, why didn’t you just use another card?
In hindsight, that’s exactly how I would have handled it. I think the problem was a lot of those expenditures were handled by travel agents, and sometimes the accounts got mixed up. The most important thing people need to understand is that the Republican Party never spent a penny on anything that wasn’t Republican Party-related.
Koch Industries, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are among your top career campaign contributors. What do you say to people who believe that they’re investing in you so that you’ll push to overhaul the tax code to their benefit?
People buy into my agenda. I don’t buy into anyone’s agenda. I tell people what I stand for, and the things I’ve stood for were the same at the very beginning, when none of those people were giving me money.
You are a football fanatic, and your wife, Jeanette, was once a Miami Dolphins cheerleader. Coincidence?
I don’t think she did it because I was a fanatic. Her sister was a cheerleader on the squad, and Jeanette decided to try out. She made it but only did it for a year, and we got married the next year. Cheerleaders don’t get paid a lot of money, but they do get two tickets a game. That was pretty good.
Last year, Bill O’Reilly declared that unless you turn it down, you will be the Republican vice-presidential nominee because you’re from Florida and you’re Hispanic. Does it bother you to be seen to be of value because of where you’re from and your ethnic background?
A lot of factors go into choosing a vice-presidential nominee. But by and large the most important qualification is that they’re qualified to be president, and I imagine that’s the process that Newt or Mitt or any of these other guys are going to go through to decide. So I’m flattered by it, and I think people mean it as a compliment.
Will you take it?
I’m not going to be the vice-presidential nominee. There are many reasons, but one of them is because I’m focused on my job in the United States Senate.
Would you bet me $10,000?
I don’t have $10,000 I can afford to lose right now.
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