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Luis Fortuño is very pro-life, has cut some spending and lowered income taxes, but he is hardly the second coming of Ronald Reagan that many conservative pundits are so willing to annoint him as. Throw in the fact that his home state has 0 electoral votes and that he wouldn’t even be able to vote for the presidential ticket, and the pick would make even less sense. Yes, there are a lot of Puerto Ricans in Central Florida that grew up in Puerto Rico and still have close ties to the Island, but probably close to half of them are from the “pro-Commonwealth” Popular Democratic Party in Puerto Rico politics and thus would not be very motivated to vote for a ticket with Fortuño (who is a Republican, but locally is a member of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party. And Fortuño would have even more limited appeal to non-Puerto Rican Hispanics.

If the GOP presidential nominee wants a Hispanic runningmate, FL Senator Marco Rubio (who is Cuban-American) and NM Governor Susana Martinez (who is Mexican-American) would be exponentially better picks. As I recently posted, though, since our nominee will almost certainly be either a Mormon (Romney) or a Catholic (Santorum), I don’t think that Catholics such as Rubio or Martinez (or Fortuño, for that matter) would be such good selections.

I don’t think that Evangelical Protestants will mind having no Protestant on the GOP ticket. There are none on the Supreme Court and no much cares. Many deep Southern states have elected Catholics to represent them for many years.

As for the other officials named, Marco Rubio and Susana Martinez were just elected to their offices two years ago and need time to establish records.

Trust me, the last thing this union needs is Puerto Rico as a state. It would become another Democrat run hellhole in very short order.

In fact, the advantages of remaining a Commonwealth work much better for the residents, as well. They have many more advantages than obligations; best of both worlds scenario.

In fact, the only advantage to Puerto Rican statehood would accrue to Mississippi and Maine. The place is so poor that it would raise both states another notch away from the bottom of the national poverty stats.