Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio trade barbs at Sunshine Summit

ORLANDO -- Major GOP presidential hopefuls are wooing voters and activists for their support in the state's March 15 primary at the Republican Party's Sunshine Summit, where former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says the American people cannot afford to elect another president like Barack Obama.

Bush said Obama was "a gifted" candidate who "had absolutely nothing in his background that would suggest that he could make a tough decision."

Bush's remarks may as well have been directed at his younger GOP rivals, Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

He also fired a shot at front-runner Donald Trump without naming him, saying the GOP cannot win by tearing down others in the presidential race. He says Republicans can win in 2016 if they run "a hopeful and optimistic campaign."

Bush addressed a boisterous crowd of GOP supporters following his speech Friday at the two-day presidential summit in Orlando.

4:30 p.m.

Mike Huckabee doesn't sound like a fan of Disney World.

The former Arkansas governor criticized the entertainment giant Friday for securing work visas so they could replace technology employees with foreigners.

Huckabee was speaking just miles from the Disney

resort at a presidential candidate summit organized by the state Republican Party. He attacked Disney as he discussed immigration issues.

Huckabee acknowledged he was in Orlando, near Disney World, also known as the "happiest place on Earth."

But he added: "It wasn't very happy for the Disney workers who were replaced by foreign workers."

He said Disney made the laid-off employees train their lower-cost replacements. He said America should treat its people better than that.

He also said immigration shouldn't be about displacing American workers.

1:45 p.m.

Republican presidential candidate Lindsay Graham says he wants to fix immigration and fix it forever, because Republicans risk losing a generation of Hispanic voters over the contentious issue.

He said the United States needs legal immigration but he wants to "pick people from all around the world, not just Mexico."

Graham says the federal government cannot deport 11 million people and that the best way to find "the bad people" among them is to have "the good people" come forward.

The South Carolina senator says he would require those living here illegally to take an English exam, pay a fine and pass a criminal background check to remain in the United States.

1:30 p.m.

Texas Sen. Cruz came to the home state of two rivals and made a case to win its Republican presidential primary.

Cruz received a more enthusiastic reception than Rubio during the Florida Republican Party's presidential summit.

He says Texas and Florida have a lot in common. They're Southern states where a lot of immigrants live and they're low-tax states where the economy is growing.

He then joked: "We also share a similar dislike for snow."

Cruz says Florida's March 15 primary will be important in choosing a nominee and tells party activists they can select a true conservative.

He also tells a life story similar to Rubio's. Both are sons of Cuban immigrants whose fathers worked low-paying jobs after arriving in the country.

1:15 p.m.

Rubio says the 11 million people living in the United States illegally will need to wait at least 10 years to gain legal status because the federal government must prove it can secure its borders and modernize its immigration system.

Rubio says he's "puzzled" and "surprised" by Cruz's attacks on him about immigration because the Texas senator's position "is not much different from mine."

Cruz has criticized Rubio for his role in authoring an immigration bill in 2013 that passed the Senate but failed in the House.

Rubio now says a single, comprehensive immigration bill is not the way to go.

This story was originally published November 13, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio trade barbs at Sunshine Summit ."