Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had some surprisingly harsh words to say when asked about whether Florida Sen. Marco Rubio might be a name Republican presumptive Presidential nominee former Gov. Mitt Romney might seriously consider. In a nutshell: it’s be a poor choice and Rubio wouldn’t help the GOP much with Latino voters:
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would not be a wise pick for number two on the GOP ticket this year, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told CNN Saturday.
Rubio is not ready to be president, Gonzales said, and the vice president “must be ready on day one.”
“Rubio’s resume does not reflect someone prepared to confront serious and dangerous issues that our country faces as president,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales, who was the nation’s first Latino attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and remains one of the highest-ranking Latinos in U.S. history, questioned the staying power of the Florida senator’s popularity with Latino voters.
Rubio might generate interest among Latinos “for the first 12 hours if selected for the number two spot, but that won’t last,” Gonzales said.
The Republican Party should do more to court Latinos, Gonzales said.
“We haven’t seen the GOP reach out to Latino voters (in the primaries). We’ve seen them alienate that vote,” he said.
Gonzales made the comments at a Harvard Latino Law, Policy and Business Conference and elaborated in a subsequent interview with CNN.
You have to wonder if there’s some kind of bad blood behind this comment. It’s not the typical comment a GOPer would say about another GOPer whose name has popped up for consideration as Vice President.
But Gonzales is most likely correct: just putting someone on the ticket who has a Latino name is no fix for Republicans when it comes to Latino voters. Rubio’s record and utterances while on the ticket on every and all issues related to Hispanic voters will be ruthlessly vetted by the media and team Obama. And in light of the current consensus about John McCain picking someone unqualified to be President as Vice President in 2008, it’s hard to see Romney making the same kind of move. Rubio in the future? Possibly. Rubio now? Not his year.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.