Rubio: Obama Shot Great Opportunity to Unite Nation on 'High-Minded Things'

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said that President Obama has decided to take the low-minded route since being elected four years ago.

“I don’t agree with Barack Obama on a lot of things, but the one thing I knew back in 2008 when he was elected, was that he had a very unique, perhaps the most unique opportunity ever of any modern American president to bring our nation together on high-minded things,” Rubio said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation. “He’s decided to go in a very different direction, and I think that’s going to disappoint a lot of people.”

The senator said Obama is playing dirty now because he can’t run on his record.

“I mean, when you think about the president’s allies have run an ad basically accusing Mitt Romney of being personally responsible for the death of some woman because she lost — a poor lady who lost her health insurance. I mean, that’s just outrageous,” Rubio said. “They’ve accused him of being a felon, basically. They ran another ad that compared him to a vampire. I mean — so certainly, I think that yes, I mean, I don’t remember seeing any of those ads in 2008 from the Obama campaign.”

“…He can’t look at the American people with a straight face and say you are better off today than you were four years ago. He doesn’t want it to be about that. So that’s why he’s talking this way.”

Rubio will open for Mitt Romney when the GOP nominee gives his speech Thursday night to close out the Republican National Convention.

He brushed off controversy over Romney’s Friday comments that “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate.”

“My take on it is there is no debate in my mind where the president was born and whether he’s qualified to hold office on the basis of his birth. The president himself has joked about it,” Rubio said. “And now, you know, obviously, we live in a political environment where we should be careful about everything we say. I can tell you I’ve heard Mitt Romney repeatedly address this issue and debunk it as a non-issue.”

“Our quarrel with the president is not about his birth certificate, our quarrel is about an $800 billion stimulus that failed, about a debt that continues to grow,” he added.