Rubio: I Won't Tell Newt to Drop Out

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a leading vice presidential favorite for many Republicans, says he doesn’t think that Newt Gingrich or anybody else should be told to quit the contentious GOP presidential race.

In an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Rubio said he’s not concerned about presidential process dragging on too long, and that the election will be “reframed” once the Republicans have their candidate.

“I don’t think anybody should be told to drop out,” Rubio said. “I think people should run until they feel that either they don’t want to continue or they don’t see a path to victory. I’ve never [believed] in asking people to drop out of a race because I had a bunch of people ask me to drop out of a race.”

Other excerpts from the interview:

• On vice president: “I’m not going to be vice president” and he "wouldn't know how to" campaign for the position.
• On Rush Limbaugh: The talk radio host has dealt with the controversy over his comments about a Georgetown law student “adequately. He’s spoken about it, he’s apologized.”
• On Mitt Romney: “You think strongly conservative people are going to vote for Barack Obama? Once the race is reframed, all the strongly conservative people are going to rally around the alternative to Barack Obama.”
• On the primary process: “What I think is very important for Republicans is not to talk ourselves into this idea that somehow because we’re having a longer primary than we’ve had in past years that we’re somehow doomed to failure in November. We are going to have a nominee whether it’s next week, next month of three months from now. At that point, the election will be reframed. The election will become a choice between two very different people, between two very different views of America. And the election will become about the president’s record.”
• On Syria: "I think the military option in Syria is much different than Libya for a lot of different reasons. It’s much riskier, much costlier.” But Rubio said the United States "could provide communications equipment to the opposition and encourage government loyalists to defect.”