ALL MARCO ALL THE TIME – AT 10:39 A.M. ET:  The Politico reports that a number of newly elected Republicans are getting the lookover as possible V.P. candidates, but that Marco Rubio, the new senator from Florida, stands out.

The reason he stands out is that Rubio has "the gift," the image of a man headed for higher office.  I've rarely seen a young political figure who can articulate his point of view as well as Rubio can, and who exudes, at the same time, the positive American optimism of Ronald Reagan:

Above all, Republicans and Democrats agree that it's Rubio who stands out in this field.

A young, charismatic Cuban-American with an appealing personal story, Rubio took 49 percent of the vote Tuesday, a remarkable total in a three-way race. Exit polls showed he captured 55 percent of the Hispanic vote.

As a vice presidential candidate, Rubio could make the nation’s largest swing state even more of a tossup and force Obama’s political team to consider a roadmap back to the White House without it. National Democrats were watching him long before Tuesday, hoping in vain that he would lose and his potential would be stifled.

“The bottom line is that after 2008, you can never go back to an all-white ticket,” said Susan MacManus, political science professor at the University of South Florida. “So I think for Republicans diversity is as big a priority as it is for Democrats.”

Rubio acts like a national politician, too. He's spent most of the past year running against Obama, telling Florida voters that electing a Democratic governor would give the president a leg up in the state in 2012. “Not to mention if the next U.S. senator from Florida is a [Obama] supporter." Rubio went on. "That's even more dangerous.”

COMMENT:  Some politicians have about them an aura of inevitability.  I think Marco Rubio is one of them. 

The problem is not putting him on the bottom of the ticket in 2012.  That would work.  The problem is picking someone for the top of the ticket, and that is going to be very difficult.  The selection process begins right now. 

November 7, 2010