Jonathan Karl reports that Marco Rubio isn’t being considered for the VP slot:

Even before the Republicans chose a presidential nominee it was widely assumed that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., would be at the top of anybody’s list of vice presidential candidates. The reasons are obvious: Not only is he young, charismatic and wildly popular with conservatives, but he could also help Republicans win a key state (Florida) and make inroads with Hispanics.

But knowledgeable Republican sources tell me that Rubio is not being vetted by Mitt Romney’s vice presidential search team. He has not been asked to complete any questionnaires or been asked to turn over any financial documents typically required of potential vice presidential candidates.

The reasons were mostly wrong or overstated. There was never much evidence that Rubio would help the ticket in Florida, and even less that he would draw Hispanic voters into the Republican camp. A lot of people made these assumptions about Rubio’s political value and never bothered to test any of them. Movement conservatives were caught up in one of their periodic moments of hero-worship, so their analysis was colored by their hopes for what they wanted to believe about Rubio. Many pundits thought they had identified how the GOP would “solve” its weakness among Hispanic voters, which just confirmed that they don’t know why most Hispanics vote for the other party.

It never made much sense that a predominantly Democratic voting bloc would find a Cuban-American Republican appealing because of his ethnicity, and it made even less sense when one realized that most Hispanics in this country don’t identify with Cuban-Americans. Rubio is young, which is another way of saying that he has very little experience at the national level. Even though he has been working overtime to present himself as the John McCain of the next generation, he doesn’t have much foreign policy experience. Rubio isn’t prepared to be President, and so he would be a poor choice for Vice President. Once the Romney campaign gave it some thought, they probably realized the same thing.

It may not seem like it to his fans, but this is good news for Rubio. Whether you like him or not, Rubio could go on to be a long-serving Senator and he might someday even deserve some of the rapturous approval he already receives. Joining a flawed Republican ticket before he was ready in a year when the incumbent was already slightly favored to win would have been a good way to make sure that Rubio’s star would start to dim earlier in his national career. It’s also good news for Romney, because it suggests that he is taking the selection of a running mate seriously. Movement conservatives will be disappointed, but that was almost guaranteed when so many of them began cheering for implausible and unqualified running mates. If the Obama campaign was counting on Romney to shoot himself in the foot with a flashy, bad VP pick, they are most likely out of luck.

Update: The Post reports that a Romney adviser has confirmed that Rubio isn’t being considered for VP:

“Blue skies ahead,” the outside Romney adviser said of Rubio. “But could he be president tomorrow? I don’t think so.”