Over the last year, stories have run about how Gov. Doug Burgum, Sen. Tim Scott, Sen. J.D. Vance, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Sen. Tom Cotton, among others, "leads the pack for Trump veep pick." A recent headline declared the likeliest candidate now is Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

No one knows for sure, of course; Donald Trump said on Saturday that he has made his mind up, but he says a lot of things. The presumptive Republican nominee has said repeatedly that the identity of his running mate will be revealed at the party’s convention in Milwaukee next month. In the meantime, every breath of speculation simply points the media spotlight where Trump most likes it to be — on himself.

In the postmodern, post-truth world of the contemporary GOP, Rubio — whom Trump memorably branded “Little Marco” during the 2016 Republican primary — is not an absurd candidate. He has been in the Senate for 13 years and has chaired the Intelligence Committee. He has broadly conservative credentials: skeptical of anthropogenic climate change, strongly supportive of Second Amendment rights, opposed to Obamacare, stringently against abortion.

Under the terms of the Habitation Clause of the 12th Amendment, which requires the candidates for president and vice president to come from different states, either Trump or Rubio would have to formally register somewhere other than Florida. This is a technicality........

© The Hill