Some GOP presidential prospects are eying Rubio as a possible running mate. | Reuters
By SCOTT WONG
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — It might look like tea party hero Marco Rubio waded into enemy territory with stops in San Francisco and Beverly Hills this week. But rubbing shoulders with a different crowd is the point of the freshman senator’s three-day swing through the Golden State.
The Florida Republican is out to prove he can appeal beyond the activist base, introducing himself to the state’s political and corporate elite, raising cash for his party from some of George W. Bush’s top donors and paying homage to one of Republicans’ most venerable icons — Ronald Reagan.
It’s the second act of a well-orchestrated national rollout that began this spring for Rubio, who insists he has no immediate national ambitions. But if the tea party favorite makes a strong debut and can win over establishment Republicans outside his home state, he could emerge an irresistible choice for the No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket in 2012.
“Two words: vice president,” Jack Pitney, a Claremont McKenna College political science professor, said of Rubio’s visit. “On the one hand, he wants to remain a favorite of the tea party faction. On the other hand, he wants to reassure the party establishment that he isn’t the warm-weather version of Sarah Palin.”
Since his stunning victory last fall, Rubio’s stuck close to the script: He says he’s focusing on his job as U.S. senator and isn’t interested in making a run for the White House.
But his Tuesday night address here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library — his first major speech outside of Washington or his home state — was rife with symbolism. It cast him as a serious policymaker and fueled already rampant speculation that the young, charismatic senator is the hands-down favorite to win the vice presidential nod.
“Americans here in the 20th century built the richest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world,” Rubio told an enthusiastic crowd of 1,000. “And yet today we have built for ourselves a government that not even the richest and most prosperous nation in the face of the earth can fund or afford to pay for — an extraordinarily tragic accomplishment.”
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