1 Marco Rubio was born in Miami on May 28, 1971, to parents who fled Cuba after Fidel Castro's takeover.
2 When he was 8, Rubio moved with his parents to Las Vegas, where his mother worked as a hotel housekeeper and his father as a bartender.
3 After his family returned to Miami in 1985, he attended South Miami Senior High School. He graduated in 1989 and attended Tarkio College in Missouri on a football scholarship.
4 After a year in Missouri, he moved to Gainesville, Fla., where he attended Santa Fe Community College. He later attended the University of Florida, where he graduated in 1993 with a B.S. in political science. He earned his J.D., with honors, from the University of Miami in 1996.
5 After law school, he worked for the Miami law firm Tew Cardenas. From 1998 to 2000, Rubio was a part-time city commissioner for West Miami.
6 In 2000, at age 28, Rubio was elected to the Florida House of Representatives and was a member until 2008. He was speaker of the Florida House from 2006 to 2008 and previously served as majority leader.
7 Traveling the state as a legislator, he compiled the book, 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future. Of the ideas, 57 became state law.
8 He taught a course on state politics at Florida International University in 2008 and 2009.
9 His favorite television shows are The O'Reilly Factor and The Tudors.
10 His wife, Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio, was a Miami Dolphins cheerleader. They've been married since 1998 and have four children.
- See a slide show of 10 reasons Sarah Palin would make a good president.
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