Is Marco Rubio the GOP Front-runner for 2016?

It is way, way too early for this, but Chris Cillizza over at WaPos The Fix is offering his own version of the Sweet 16 for 2016-- with two prominent Florida Republicans in the mix for their partys nomination that year. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio starts off as the top seed while former Gov. Jeb Bush is in the fourth seed.

The top seed seems a little high for Rubio who has been, when all is said and done, on the national stage for two years now. Yes, Obama won the White House after only four years on the national stage -- but that's not how Republicans operate. Republican presidential candidates usually spend years in the political trenches before running for president and most GOP presidential nominees (besides George W. Bush, but then he had a pretty familiar name) ran for president in previous election cycles.

Even in 2016, when he will have had six years in the Senate, Rubio will have logged less time in political leadership than any GOP nominee since Ike, who was a major military commander for more than a decade. Rubio is certainly charismatic -- and that did help Wendell Willkie get the GOP nod in 1940, the largest political unknown to ever win the Republican nomination. But then, Willkie was the only Republican hopeful that year to call for an end to isolationism.

If the Republican side seems a little Florida heavy and there are some big names missing -- for example, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. -- the Democrat bracket seems a little New York heavy. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has the top seed while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Kristin Gillibrand are both in the mix. New York produces a lot of presidential candidates -- John Lindsay, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, and of course the various almost-launched bids of Mario Cuomo -- but it has not produced a president since FDR routed Herbert Hoover in 1932.