its pretty clear NBC and Citizen are different because NBC is used in very close proximity on the controlling document. The constitution. We cant say what the definition is, but it is quite logical to say they should be different definitions. As you were typing that think about the left and hypocrits... did you have trouble finishing the sentence? I could see Carville, madow, shaprton, CNBC and their parade of guest dummies with silly titles (like managing senior writer for leftgarbage.com) all making spurious race baiting type distinctions all day long.
I would agree that whether Rubio is legally eligible isn't the issue. For the GOP, they don't want anything that would take the focus off the economy. Dems are frantically trying to keep the focus on contraception and womens' rights. Rubio's eligibility and ties to mormonism provide easy tangents. OTOH, he who wins FL, takes the White House. The rest is going to be very close. Without FL neither candidate has a clear path to victory.
Although legal scolars over the centuries have offered opinions along these lines, I think this was the closest the Supreme Court ever came to defining a Natural born citizen in 1874: âThe Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. 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.â Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 168. My main personal interest is that I don't want Rubio to be a distraction. The focus has to be on Obama. But, there is an interesting, short discussion about the definition of NBC here. http://uspolitics.about.com/od/politicaljunkies/a/natural_citizen.htm
The Supreme Court decision did not say that was the only way to be natural born, only that it was never doubted such people were. I suppose an argument could be made that someone with one US citizen parent would be eligible but not someone with two, but I think it will very hard for the democrats to touch that. In fact, the republicans might be well-advised to tempt them to touch it.
You may not live in Florida but Rubio is far from admired outside of Miami. Recently there was a mini scandal where it turned out that his parents who were supposedly "exiled" by Castro left Cuba before he even took power. He went around proclaiming he is a son of exiles which he is not. Plus he had issues paying a mortgage and other things. Just because "the tea party" has a hard on for him does not mean he is VP material. Tea party has a hard on for sarah palin too. Romney will go for a clone of himself - a boring old white guy. Maybe not old but definitely white and boring. Portman is a frontrunner for that. Chris Christie has an obnoxious mouth and outside of New Jersey would definitely rub people the wrong way. Plus he is morbidly obese which is not acceptable if you want to show personal responsibility.
Most of the polls in the RCP averages are very old. In addition, almost all of the polls were taken before Romney was the presumptive nominee. Future polls will be much more meaningful.