IS MARCO MAKING HIS MOVE? – AT 10:33 A.M. ET:  We've said here before that the Republican cast of presidential characters for 2012 isn't very exciting.   The GOP, we've said, may have to reach down to the next generation to find a candidate who can wake things up, and we've suggested Marco Rubio, the new senator from Florida.

Now, Rubio may be making his move.  From The Politico:

With a landmark spending debate engulfing Washington, the Florida Republican has, virtually overnight, launched the national profile the conservative movement has been clamoring for.

During his first national interview Monday, Rubio pounced on President Barack Obama — from the friendly confines of Laura Ingraham’s conservative radio show. He blasted a statement to the media, pledging to vote against the Republicans’ short-term spending resolution and calling it a “nickle-and-dime” approach. And he’s vowed to vote against everything that comes through the Senate unless it deals with addressing the $14 trillion debt crisis.

Rubio has even given up an apparent Twitter moratorium, tweeting this week for the first time since his victory last November.

“Politicians in D.C. won’t deal with the debt,” he wrote.

For tea party and other conservative activists, this is the Rubio they’ve been waiting for.

“Marco Rubio has had it, and it hasn’t taken long for Marco Rubio to have had it,” conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said on his show Tuesday. “Marco Rubio says, ‘What is this continuing resolution crap? I didn’t come in here to fund the government every two to three weeks, and $6 billion here and $6 billion there. What the hell is going on here?’”

“Wish the damn guy, wish the guy would run for president,” Limbaugh added.

COMMENT:  It may happen.  But, if he does, Rubio must not permit himself to be a captive of any faction.  He has broad appeal.  He won his Senate seat in Florida easily.  The first thing the Dems would do would be to try to tag Rubio as an extremist, or a Tea Party lackey.  I think the guy has the smarts to avoid the label.

Marco Rubio is a Cuban-American.  He would be the first Cuban-American to run for president, and he surely would have an appeal to Hispanics.  The Democrats need the Hispanic vote to win a national election.  Rubio could deny it to them.  Besides, he's a campaigner equal to Obama, and that's what is needed.

March 16, 2011