What's Wrong with Rubio?

Not that he'll be picked as VP, but I think he's on the very short list. So just in case he is picked, what's the nasty dirt that would make him unacceptable to be the #2? Just watched him on Meet the Press and also saw a little bio video of his life.. seems like a pretty decent and smart guy to me.

Ryt_Rick wrote: Not that he'll be picked as VP, but I think he's on the very short list. So just in case he is picked, what's the nasty dirt that would make him unacceptable to be the #2? Just watched him on Meet the Press and also saw a little bio video of his life.. seems like a pretty decent and smart guy to me.

Well... Republicans don't like Latinos... for a start... that could be a problem...

Dean: Republicans 'don't like Latinos'

Howard Dean on Tuesday said Republicans “don’t like Latinos” and “don’t care about the average working American,” predicting “these guys are going to pay for this” electorally.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/05 ... z1yjJOiAtJ

Funny... I was married to a Latino for 15 years. Almost all the Latinos (or Hispanics as we called them in our family) that we knew were conservatives. And we all liked each other. I guess we were secret racists or something.

A couple things in this article:

He doesn't practice what he preaches on finances. His personal finances have been a mess. He has already had an issue with using his political party credit card for personal uses.

He misrepresented his parents fleeing Castro's Cuba. They actually left years before that.

He has opposed many policies popular with Hispanic voters. He may be popular with Hispanics in Florida, but that probably won't translate to the rest of the country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/ ... O020120126

Also, he has no national political clout. He doesn't have enough substance to help Romney in a national election. I think Romney is going to go with a governor.

Rubio is not a natural born citizen. Neither of his parents were U.S. citizens whenever he was born. He is not qualified to step in as president if needed.


Here is a copy of his father's petition for naturalization (4 years after the birth of Marco):

Was he born in the US or in Cuba? Isn't anyone born in the US a natural born citizen no matter the status of their parents?

Being born in the U.S. is only part of the elements of being a natural born citizen. Both parents must be citizens of the U.S.
The Constitution was created using many ideas which were formed before the American Revolution. One was a legal treatise “the Law of Nations,” written by Emerich de Vattel in 1758.

In book one chapter 19,

§ 212. Of the citizens and natives.

“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens . As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”

Arlen wrote: Being born in the U.S. is only part of the elements of being a natural born citizen. Both parents must be citizens of the U.S.

Here we go again....

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)

In this case, Wong Kim Ark, the son of 2 resident Chinese aliens, claimed U.S. Citizenship and was vindicated by the court on the basis of the 14th Amendment. In this case the Justice Gray gave the opinion of the court. On p. 168-9 of the record, He cites approvingly the decision in Minor vs. Happersett:

At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.

On the basis of the 14th Amendment, however, the majority opinion coined a new definition for “native citizen”, as anyone who was born in the U.S.A., under the jurisdiction of the United States. The Court gave a novel interpretation to jurisdiction, and thus extended citizenship to all born in the country (excepting those born of ambassadors and foreign armies etc.); but it did not extend the meaning of the term “natural born citizen.”

He is, by definition of the Supreme Court, a U.S. citizen because he was born in Miami... Whether or not one or both of his parents had obtained full citizenship at the time is irrelevant. Unless, of course, you'd like to go back and declare John McCain a non-citizen....

Ooopsie, hoisted on your own "birther" petard....

(Unless, of course, you're going by the "Revisionist History of the Sovereign Citizens of the Plutocracy of the Founding Fathers" playbook...)

Soulshiner wrote: A couple things in this article:

He doesn't practice what he preaches on finances. His personal finances have been a mess. He has already had an issue with using his political party credit card for personal uses.

He misrepresented his parents fleeing Castro's Cuba. They actually left years before that.

He has opposed many policies popular with Hispanic voters. He may be popular with Hispanics in Florida, but that probably won't translate to the rest of the country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/ ... O020120126

Also, he has no national political clout. He doesn't have enough substance to help Romney in a national election. I think Romney is going to go with a governor.

That Reuters article had several errors, some of which were later corrected as shown at the bottom of the article. Here is some more info on it though I don't know if it's all been resolved...

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-26/politics/30665882_1_home-equity-line-payment-party-credit-card

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/01/reuters-staff-call-rubio-story-fiasco-disgrace-112574.html

Where does it say in our constitution that a natural born citizen must have both parents as citizens of the US? Please note that our constitution also includes ALL amendments made to it.

Though the term "natural-born citizen" was left undefined by the Framers of the Constitution, it was broadly understood in English common law at the time as referring to one who possesses citizenship by virtue of the circumstances of their birth, which is still the general meaning of the phrase as it's used today.

In the United States there are two established legal principles upon which individuals are said to acquire citizenship at birth: jus sanguinus ("right of blood"), meaning citizenship conferred by being born to parents who are U.S. citizens, and jus soli ("right of soil"), meaning citizenship conferred by being born on U.S. soil. Per the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," all individuals born on U.S. soil are considered "birthright citizens" under the law regardless of the citizenship status of their parents.

Natural born' vs. 'native born'

In lawsuits challenging Obama's Constitutional eligibility it has been argued that while birth on U.S. soil confers "birthright" or "native-born" citizenship, it does not confer natural-born citizenship unless both parents are also U.S. citizens. Citing precedents they claim establish the Framers' intent to disqualify individuals who could possess dual nationality or dual allegiance by virtue of having a foreign national for a parent, these litigants assert that such an individual ought not to be regarded as a natural-born citizen eligible to hold the office of the presidency (for example, see Leo D'Onofrio, "Why Obama Is Ineligible - Regardless of His Birthplace").

But among Constitutional scholars the distinction between "natural born" and "native born" is not universally accepted as a crucial one. Short of a Supreme Court decision or legislative statute settling the matter, it remains but one way of interpreting a longstanding legal ambiguity concerning the eligibility clause. There are other interpretations, most notably that found in an analysis of Republican presidential candidate John McCain's standing as a natural-born citizen conducted in 2008 by former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and Constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe. In their view — "based," Tribe and Olson wrote, "on the original meaning of the Constitution, the Framers' intentions, and subsequent legal precedent" — either the fact of birth on U.S. soil or the fact of birth to parents who are U.S. citizens is independently sufficient to confer natural born status.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barack ... itizen.htm

The birther nuts have tried to argue this point in court SEVERAL times now, and SCOTUS, and appellate courts have rejected it...