Florida Senator Marco Rubio Gets Deal for Memoirs

Florida Senator Marco Rubio. (2011 Getty Images)

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has signed a major book deal for his memoirs, set to be released  when the country will be in the midst of picking the next president and vice president of the United States.

The Sentinel imprint owned by the mega-house publishing company Penguin Group won the week-long auction process that pitted six publishing houses in competition for the book rights of the potential 2012 vice presidential candidate.

"Marco Rubio is one of the brightest rising stars of the Republican Party and will likely be on the national stage for many years to come," said Adrian Zackheim, the publisher for Penguin-Sentinel.

"Of equal interest is the emotional story of his family's journey to the U.S. from Cuba, their exile experience and how that shaped the senator's life," Zackheim writes. " This will be a very personal memoir that proves that the American dream is still alive and well for those who work to pursue it."

While Penguin would not comment on the timing the book's planned release, the fall 2012 date seems to indicate an effort to hit the market when reader appetite for politics is usually is higher than normal due to the presidential elections.

Despite Rubio's repeated and emphatic denials of his interest in being a possible vice presidential nominee on the 2012 ticket, some observers say the book may be an intentional move to keep Republicans interested in him, and to maintain his profiled raised.

“There is an old saying in politics: That it is really a good thing to keep people asking if you are going to do something rather than announcing very quickly that that is what you want,” says Dr. Susan MacManus, the head of the politics department at The University of South Florida. "Rubio is certainly very savvy in terms of keeping his name out there and he has often said he would not want to be the vice presidential nominee but the fact that he is often mentioned as a possibility is never a bad thing."

The book also comes as an effort by the freshman senator to counter accusations made in a Washington Post article that Rubio had made "embellishments" about his family's journey to the United States to escape Fidel Castro's Communist regime.  Rubio's parents emigrated to Florida two years prior to Castro taking power.

Rubio has said that the chronological mistakes were not intentional and that they do not change the main family narrative nor the fact that they could not return to their country because of  Castro's totalitarian practices.

Some news organizations like the Miami Herald have criticized the Washington Post article, whose author had signed a competing book deal to write Rubio's biography, for over-selling the accusations.

Rubio's book deal, which was negotiated by D.C. power-broker Bob Barnett, is being reviewed by the Senate Ethics Committee, as is customary. There is no word yet on the amount Rubio will receive from Penguin.

Serafin Gómez is a producer for the Fox News Channel, working out of the Miami Bureau. 

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