Mitt Romney does damage control with Hispanic voters as he insists Marco Rubio IS being 'thoroughly vetted' for VP

By Toby Harnden for the Daily Mail

Published: 12:31 EST, 20 June 2012 | Updated: 12:44 EST, 20 June 2012

Mitt Romney has insisted that he is considering Marco Rubio as his vice-presidential running mate after leaks that the U.S. Senator for Florida was not being vetted infuriated Hispanic conservatives and Tea Party activists.

Grassroots Republicans were livid that Rubio, 40, one of his party’s rising stars and its most prominent Latino voice, was being passed over without a serious look.

ABC News and the Washington Post reported that Rubio had not been asked to provide any information about his background – a pre-requisite for the vice-presidential process.

Contenders: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has denied reports of not considering Florida Senator Marco Rubio, pictured with him in April, of being his potential running mate

Having been tight-lipped about all aspects of the process for weeks, Romney, clearly stung by building criticism throughout the day, suddenly denied the reports.

Talking to reporters outside a Michigan ice cream shop, he rubbished the advisers cited in the media: ‘I can't imagine who such people are, but I can tell you this - They know nothing about the vice presidential selection or evaluation process.

‘The story was entirely false. Marco Rubio is being thoroughly vetted as part of our process.’

Earlier, Romney had declined to comment on the reports that Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, was not a contender. The presumptive Republican nominee told Fox News that ‘a number of people are being vetted’ but that only he and a senior adviser knew who was on the list.

Names: Seen in Michigan this week, Romney said that several people are being vetted by him as potential vice president contenders but would not provide any more names

Rubio has long been touted as a strong running mate for Romney on account of his youth, Hispanic appeal and Tea Party credibility. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, has hailed his ‘incredible energy and described him as ‘the most articulate spokesman for conservative principles in American today’.

The flap over Rubio’s vice-presidential prospects came on the day Rubio’s autobiography, An American Son, was published. In it, he described how he turned away from Romney’s Mormon faith.

When he was eight, Rubio’s family moved from Miami to Las Vegas where the future Senator ‘immersed’ himself in the literature of the faith having been inspired by a family of Mormons who lived over the road from them.

Rubio writes: ‘They were a close-knit family who were always doing things together.

Voices: Those further speaking out on Rubio and his strengths, most likely to Romney's and his advisers' ears, includes former-Governor Jeb Bush who called Rubio the most articulate Conservative spokesman today

‘They represented the kind of safe, respectable family life my parents wanted for us.’

Rubio was so zealous a follower that he persuaded his mother, Oriala and sister Veronica, to be baptised, though his father Mario did not convert.

In fact, it was his father who had smoked since the age of 13 and worked in bars who appears to have been the reason he eventually left the church.

Rubio writes: ‘Some of the church’s rules were difficult for my parents, especially my father, to abide by’.

Even his mother could not quit the Cuban coffee that she had grown up drinking.

Rubio's push: Arguments for Rubio being a strong contender include his youth, Hispanic appeal and Tea Party credibility

In the end Rubio persuaded his entire family to leave the Mormon church and become Catholic, which was the religion his mother had grown up with.

He writes: ‘All in all, the Mormon church provided the sound moral structure my mother had wanted for us, and a circle of friends from stable, God-fearing families.

‘When we left the church a few years later, mostly at my instigation, we did so with gratitude for its considerable contribution to our happiness in those years...

‘...We left the Mormon church with nothing but admiration for the place that had been our first spiritual home in Las Vegas and had been so generous to us,' Rubio writes. 'I still feel that way.’

Family: Rubio, pictured with his son, Dominick Rubio and his wife, Jeanette Rubio in 2010, said that he converted to being a Mormon after inspired by their family values but later turned Catholic

A separate book, The Rise of Marco Rubio, by The Washington Post’s Manuel Roig-Franzia, also tells how even when he was a young man Rubio called the shots when it came to the family’s religion.

Roig-Franzia talked to Rubio’s cousin Michelle Denis who said he ‘really convinced his whole family to switch religions’.

He also notes that as they have never officially been removed from the Mormon record books they ‘may still be counted as Mormons by the church’.

A spokesman for Romney declined to comment.

Rubio’s campaign has also refused to comment and spokesman Alex Conant said: ‘We have no comment on the vice presidential search process.’

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