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The Rubio Mirage

Having dubbed Romney the nominee months ago, Kathleen Parker starts speculating about his running mate and chooses Rubio: Latest to the list is the young and junior senator from Florida, Marco Rubio. His political résumé includes: nine years as a state legislator, including two as speaker of the Florida House; enormous popularity with Tea Partyers […]

Having dubbed Romney the nominee months ago, Kathleen Parker starts speculating about his running mate and chooses Rubio:

Latest to the list is the young and junior senator from Florida, Marco Rubio. His political résumé includes: nine years as a state legislator, including two as speaker of the Florida House; enormous popularity with Tea Partyers who sent him to the U.S. Senate over Republican Gov. Charlie Crist; a Cuban heritage and, thus, his presumed appeal to Hispanic voters; he’s young at just 40 and, it never hurts, attractive.

If we grant that the selection of the running mate for the Republican ticket this year should be motivated entirely by electoral considerations, Rubio seems to be a decent choice at first glance. Rubio inspires enthusiasm among many conservatives, he is the darling of a lot of the conservative media, and he represents a swing state with a large number of electoral votes. Viewed this way, he would seem to balance the ticket and offset some of Romney’s weaknesses. That said, his appeal to Hispanic voters is mostly imaginary, not least since very few outside Florida know anything about him, and adding him to the ticket apparently wouldn’t give the Republicans an advantage in Florida:

There are actually more voters in the state- 36%- who say Rubio on the ticket would make them less likely to vote for the GOP than there are- 30%- who say Rubio as the VP would enhance their chances of supporting the Republican candidate. 34% say it wouldn’t make a difference to them either way.

Rubio’s approval rating is not bad, but his appeal is not strong enough to put Florida in the Republican column. So the electoral and demographic arguments for picking Rubio are not very good. That raises the question of his qualifications. Assuming he would accept the offer, what makes Rubio qualified to be next in line for the Presidency? He has been in the Senate for less than two years, he has no executive experience, and he seems to have downloaded his foreign policy views from the mind of John McCain. Viewed this way, Rubio’s background is enough to make Condoleeza Rice look like a good choice, and choosing her would be a disaster.

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