OH GOD NO!!! Not Santorum. He would not even be able to deliver PA. Rubio would carry FL. Whoever wins FL wins the White House.
I don’t dislike Santorum but he is day-old (2-day old?) bread.
I was not aware that Rubio is not a natural-born citizen.
Actually, if Romney carries FL but loses in OH he is very unlikely to get to 270, and Romney has a better chance of carrying FL than OH, so I would posit that whoever carries OH wins the election.
I think that a Romney-Portman ticket carries FL and OH, while a Romney-Rubio ticket carries FL but perhaps not OH. Rob Portman would also be more helpful than Rubio in states like PA and MI due to his appeal among blue-collar Midwesterns, and would be more helpful than Rubio in attracting Evangelical voters (from whom we need a large turnout despite their apprehensions about Romney) in VA, NC and elsewhere because he’s a Methodist (as opposed to a Mormon like Romney, or a Catholic like Rubio).
Rubio would be a bit more helpful than Portman in NV, CO and NM, but those states are less likely to be carried by Romney even with Rubio on the ticket, and he would need to carry all three in order to make up for losing OH.
The likeliest route to 270 for Romney is the 22 McCain states + the Omaha CD + IN + NC + VA + FL + OH + one more state (most likely NH). I think he’s far likelier to get there with Portman than with Rubio.
When I first saw a speech by Rubio in 2008, I told people that he would be on a presidential ticket someday. But I think that 2020 will be his year (and for president, not VP).