Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and tea party favorite, has said he will not be the GOP’s nominee for vice president in 2012.
“I’m not going to be the vice presidential nominee,” Rubio said at The Atlantic’s Washington Ideas Forum, according to the magazine’s Mark Ambinder. “The answer is going to be no.”
Rubio had been at the top of the list of candidates to fill out the GOP’s ticket in 2012, and none less than former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has said the freshman senator would be his likely pick should he win the nomination.
“Can you imagine Marco Rubio debating Joe Biden?” Gingrich said at an event in Florida late last month. “The contrast between common sense and liberal nonsense would be so big.” The remark received a standing ovation.
Rubio has tried to shoot down such speculation before to little avail. “I have no interest in serving as vice president for anyone who could possibly live all eight years of the presidency,” Rubio joked at a recent Reagan Library event.
“I think he just repeated what he’s said in the past,” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told the Daily Caller.
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