WTF - Forget the ‘boring white guy’: Romney will pick Rubio -- The Washington Times

[bsteadman]

CURL: Forget the ‘boring white guy’: Romney will pick Rubio

The Washington Times
Joseph Curl
6/10/2012

Excerpt:

"Paul Ryan. Rob Portman. Tim Pawlenty. Bob McDonnell. Mitch Daniels. Even their names are boring. Sure, they’re all highly qualified public servants — governors, senators, congressmen — but they are also borrrrrring.

Now, say this name out loud: Marco Rubio (and make sure you employ that alveolar trill on those R’s). Kinda rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? And you know what else has a nice ring? Romney-Rubio.

Of course, Bill the Bard was right about names: They don’t mean much, and a rose would smell as sweet even if it were called an amorphophallus titanum. But names do mean at least a little something, especially after the last presidential contest, when America picked a man named Barack Hussein Obama.

2008 was not just an election, but a movement — a virtual unknown junior senator from Illinois (with stops in Kenya and Indonesia) knocked off the country’s most powerful political machine (the Clintons) to sweep to office with an optimistic message of hope and change and post-partisan politics. He was, of course, the first black man to win the office.

But four years later, that Man of Hope appears to be nothing more than a petty, partisan politician (and a pretty poor president) willing to say and do anything to win re-election. On the other side — another multimillionaire and longtime politician, not to mention a boring white guy from the Northeast (also another Harvard alumnus).

Enter Marco Rubio. Born in 1971 to parents who emigrated to the U.S. from Cuba, he attended public schools as his mother worked as a hotel housekeeper, his father as a bartender. He won a seat in the Florida House of Representatives at just 29, seven years later was elected speaker, and two years ago crushed his competitors to win a U.S. Senate seat.

His rise has been meteoric — reminiscent of another first-term senator. A conservative’s conservative, Mr. Rubio has won the hearts of the tea party, pushing for lower taxes, reduced federal spending and limited government. And he is, most of all, a party uniter: “As frustrated as sometimes we may get with the leadership of our own party on one issue or another,” he said last month, “the logical home of the limited government, constitutional Republican principles of our nation is the Republican Party.” (Did you hear that, Ron Paul supporters?)

Make no mistake: Mr. Rubio is no Sarah Palin. Admired by foreign-policy stalwarts in the Senate such as Joe Lieberman and John Kerry, the new senator has already traveled the world, stopping in Madrid to talk with Spain’s prime minister (in Spanish), and hitting Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malta, Libya, Haiti and Colombia, to name a few.

What would a Hispanic vice presidential candidate bring to Mr. Romney? There are now 50 million Hispanics in America, making up 16.3 percent of the population (blacks make up 12.6 percent). And aside from his home state of Florida, which is 22.5 percent Hispanic, Mr. Rubio could help in battleground states like Nevada (26.5 percent), Colorado (20.7 percent), North Carolina (8.4 percent) and Virginia (7.9 percent).

Hispanics in 2008 went for Mr. Obama, 67 percent to 31 percent. But the heavily religious group is no fans of the president’s push to force Catholic institutions to pay for birth control, or of Mr. Obama’s support of gay marriage.

What’s more, unemployment among Hispanics rose from 10.2 percent in April to 11 percent in May. Mr. Obama’s administration has been responsible for a record number of deportations of illegal immigrants, and has made no headway on an immigration policy. With few accomplishments to woo Hispanics, Mr. Obama has opened the door for the population to take a look at the alternative.

Last week, Jeb Bush gave the Florida senator a full-throated endorsement, calling him “the most articulate conservative elected official on the scene today.”
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View the complete article at:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...y-needs-rubio/

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My Comment: Both of Rubio's parents were not U.S. Citizens at the time of his birth. Therefore, by 1875 Minor v Happersett, he is not a 'natural born Citizen' and is ineligible for either POTUS of VP

[bsteadman]

Is Anybody Boring Enough to Be Mitt Romney's Running Mate?

The Atlantic
Molly Ball
6/10/2012

Excerpt:

As he makes his search for a vice presidential nominee, Romney has plenty of dynamic choices. But the GOP's brightest stars may be too big for the No. 2 slot.

"ROSEMONT, Illinois -- The next major event in the 2012 presidential race will come when Mitt Romney selects a running mate. The effect could be seismic -- recall the way Sarah Palin's emergence briefly boosted John McCain's 2008 hopes, injecting his listless campaign with a sense of freshness and buzz before raising doubts about his penchant for rolling the dice. Or it could be subtle: While Joe Biden's foreign policy experience and ability to communicate with blue-collar voters are sometimes touted, few would argue his selection four years ago shook up the race, even if it did dash the final hopes of Hillary Clinton supporters.

Where things stand with Romney's thinking is anyone's guess; he has deputized a senior adviser, Beth Myers, to assess the field, and has otherwise been coy about his thinking on the process. A rising generation of Republican stars gives Romney a wide array of personalities to choose from. But there's one problem: Some of those rising stars may shine a little too bright, threatening to overshadow Romney in the process.

Take Chris Christie, for example. The blunt-talking, big-boned governor of New Jersey is beloved by GOP audiences. After seeing him speak at a regional conservative conference here, attendees were, by and large, blown away. But running mate? Most said they didn't see him that way.

"Christie is too much of a rock star," opined Sandra Steers, a 67-year-old retiree from the Chicago suburbs who attended Friday's regional Conservative Political Action Conference. "He strikes me as more of a first-place person than a number two. He's too dynamic. He would detract from Romney's style."

And so, despite the roaring cheers and rave reviews for Christie's keynote speech at CPAC Chicago -- which served as a cattle call of sorts for a handful of potential vice-presidential contenders from across the country -- he got just 14 percent of the vote in the vice-presidential straw poll of attendees. (That was good for second place out of 23, behind the 30 percent who picked Sen. Marco Rubio, who did not attend.)

The 2,000 activists who attended the conference seemed to share the notion that has hardened into Beltway conventional wisdom: For Romney's veep choice, boring is better.

Here are some more takeaways from Friday's conference, which also heard from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Sen. Rand Paul, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and three of Romney's former rivals for the nomination -- Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann.

(bold and underline emphasis added -- Hmmmmm! - http://www.wasobamaborninkenya.com/I...ht=herman+cain )

* Portman? Portman who? Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio has emerged as the odds-on veep favorite inside the Beltway, but with this crowd, he didn't register. He got just 2 percent of the straw poll vote, ranking 11th of the 23 choices offered. Of the dozen activists I spoke to, just one mentioned him. Still, that was a better showing than fellow rumored short-listers Tim Pawlenty and John Thune, who finished in the straw poll's unranked bottom 10 with less than 2 percent of the vote. Interestingly, though Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has emerged as a conservative hero with his recall election win last week, and was lauded in virtually every speech at CPAC, his heightened profile hasn't translated into a feeling he should be on Romney's ticket, either. Walker also got just 2 percent of the straw poll vote, finishing behind Portman in 13th place.

* Christie: Believe the hype. The New Jerseyan's speech was electrifying and showed why he has to be considered one of America's most talented political performers today. With gruff panache, Christie first demanded the teleprompters in front of the podium be removed, then regaled the crowd with the story of how he bullied the legislature and unions into submission in his state. It was funnier and more riveting than any account of a state budgeting process has any right to be, if highly self-serving. (Christie's summary of his first budget presentation to the legislature: "I fixed your problem, you can thank me later, have a nice day.") Christie also made a forceful case against the president's comment Friday that "the private sector is doing fine." Obama, Christie charged, is blaming the nation's mayors and governors for his own failure to create jobs, which ought to happen as a result of an expanding economy, "not hiring more people for government work."

* Jindal: Better than you think. Poor Bobby Jindal is still trying to live down his disastrous national debut in a widely mocked speech responding to an Obama address in 2009. But his speech in Chicago showed he can't be so easily dismissed, and was enough to power him to a fifth-place finish in the straw poll -- not bad for a lesser-known pol from far outside the Midwest. Jindal's speech was lively, funny and packed with sharply partisan red meat. Like Christie, he showed flair as a storyteller, recounting with slapstick verve his frustration at trying to deal with the Obama administration to clean up the oil spill on his state's shore.

* McDonnell: Just boring enough? The Virginian chose to ditch the podium and pace the stage as he spoke, which, combined with his Southern accent, gave him the mien of a televangelist. But rather than riling up the crowd, his speech had a laid-back vibe and failed to make a strong impression on attendees. McDonnell was also the only speaker to devote a major part of his remarks to shilling for Romney, praising at length the nominee's record and accomplishments; several other speakers, including Santorum and Paul, didn't even mention Romney. If the veepstakes are indeed to be a competition to be the most inoffensive possible choice, McDonnell ought to be in the running."

View the complete article at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...g-mate/258325/