Deciding there's not a moment to lose, Florida senator uses governor's birthday bash as a chance for some politicking

Just when you thought it was all over, with Barack Obama still savouring victory, the game starts anew. Marco Rubio has seemingly kicked off the 2016 presidential race.

The Republican senator dashed onto the field with a trip to the caucus state of Iowa on Saturday in the apparent belief that with over 1,450 days till the next election there was no time to lose.

Rubio went ostensibly to celebrate the birthday of the governor, Terry Branstad, but used the fundraising bash for a campaign-style speech and thinly veiled declaration of intent to seek the GOP nomination.

"We need to do a better job of going out and convincing our fellow Americans who perhaps don't see things the way we do," Rubio said.

Bobby Jindal, the equally ambitious Republican governor of Louisiana, warmed up on the sidelines with interviews staking out his claim to lead the GOP away from Mitt Romney and out of the wilderness.

"We as a Republican party have to campaign for every single vote," he told Fox News on Sunday. "We don't start winning majorities… by insulting our voters."

Political junkies may relish the prospect of a 38-month campaign until the next presidential election but others may have hoped for a respite.

The bunting for 2012 has barely been taken down, it is not yet Thanksgiving and Obama has yet to begin his second term.

"Now that the 2012 election cycle is done, let's look at 2016 shall we? (collective groan)," wrote one Iowa-base conservative blogger, only half-defensively.

Rubio, 41, may have set a record for campaign precociousness with his visit to Iowa, which holds the first caucus in presidential primaries. Asked why he had come, the Florida senator grinned and replied: "For governor Branstad's birthday, his 66th." He expressed mock surprise that "people so far from Florida even care what I have to say".

As a young, media-savvy Latino with impeccable conservative credentials, many Republicans tip Rubio as the sort of candidate who can appeal to ethnic minorities and dig the party out of its ageing, white demographic trap.

"I've been sensing a lot of folks are just trying to figure out what this all means in this new era, with this election having passed," he told reporters. "I think we're all going to move on and move forward."

Rubio said the GOP could attract Hispanics, who helped swing key states for Obama, with an enlightened immigration policy. "People understand that we need to do something to address those issues and they want to do that in a reasonable and responsible way."

Branstad introduced his guest by saying the party needed to "turn the page" on the Romney candidacy and praising Rubio as the "kind of inspirational leader that's going to help point us in the right direction".

The Cuban American senator seized the opportunity with a 24-minute speech asserting conservative values and bashing Obama's plan to increase taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year. "The way to turn our economy around is not by making rich people poorer, it's by making poor people richer."

Jockeying so soon after an election is not unusual. It was around this day four years ago, AP noted, that Romney asserted his ambitions in a New York Times op-ed titled Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. Not, in hindsight, a shrewd play for Ohio but it put him in the game.

Rubio's trip to Iowa is a bolder gambit which will put pressure on potential rivals like Jindal and New Jersey governor Chris Christie to signal their own intentions. Birthday parties in other caucus states like New Hampshire and South Carolina may be about to get crowded.