Not much chance that he might reach across the asile the other direction and pick a real conservative.
Posted on 03/12/2008 3:08:10 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
When John McCain begins his search for a vice presidential running mate, he'll quickly come upon a sad fact. He wants a candidate who will be seen as a plausible president. That's criterion number one. He also wants someone who won't subtract from his campaign in any serious way. That's criterion number two. The unfortunate truth is that few Republicans meet these simple criteria. McCain doesn't have much of a pool to choose from.
But his selection matters enormously, all the more because of his age. McCain will turn 72 on the eve of the Republican convention this summer. Choosing a running mate is the first major decision that a presidential nominee makes. And the nominee is judged by the quality of his pick and even by the smoothness of his selection process. So McCain had better choose well.
He has the right idea in mind. McCain thinks three vice presidential picks from the recent past were wise: Republican Dick Cheney in 2000 and Democrats Joe Lieberman in 2000 and Al Gore in 1992. They were nationally known political heavyweights who passed the most important test. They were accepted almost instantly as ready to replace the president if necessary. And they had no significant drawbacks.
The list of plausible presidents is short. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Tom Ridge, and Joe Lieberman qualify. That's about it. There are a number of popular Republican governors--Charlie Crist of Florida, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Haley Barbour of Mississippi--but they fall short of Cheney-Lieberman-Gore stature. It's not their fault, but it's nonetheless true.
So how about Lieberman in 2008? He's a pal of McCain, a brave backer of the war in Iraq, and now the most prominent Democratic supporter of McCain's presidential bid. He would surely enhance McCain's appeal to independents and moderate Democrats. He's a political adult.
But he's no Zell Miller. Lieberman is a liberal on domestic issues, including abortion. McCain already has trouble with conservatives and picking a Democrat would make things worse. Lieberman would probably subtract more votes from the McCain ticket than he'd add.
So would Giuliani and Ridge. True, Giuliani was a hero of 9/11 as mayor of New York, and Ridge, a former Pennsylvania governor, was President Bush's first homeland security chief. But both are pro-choice on abortion and would horrify social conservatives, an indispensable part of the Republican coalition. Giuliani or Ridge might prompt a third party pro-life presidential challenger.
Fred Thompson, the ex-senator from Tennessee and now a TV actor, is also a close friend of McCain. If he'd run a more spirited presidential campaign of his own this year, he'd be the obvious pick for running mate. But his campaign was dreary and disappointing. McCain needs someone more vibrant and upbeat.
That leads to Romney. He has run a vigorous national campaign and been vetted by the press and his opponents for the Republican nomination. These are very strong pluses. A pick who produces unhelpful surprises, as Geraldine Ferraro did in 1984 (her husband's business deals) and Dan Quayle did in 1988 (his National Guard duty), is exactly what McCain doesn't need. Romney is a known quantity.
Romney has three other add-ons. He's acceptable to conservatives and especially to social conservatives, who disproportionately volunteer as ground troops in Republican presidential campaigns. He's unflappable in debates. With the downturn worsening, the economy may surpass national security as the top issue of the campaign. And after years of success as a big time player in the global economy, Romney understands how markets work. He could shore up McCain's admitted weakness on economic issues.
Romney has allies in the Bush wing of the Republican party. President Bush favors him as McCain's veep. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, preferred Romney over McCain in the primaries, but never endorsed him publicly. Karl Rove, the president's political strategist, has hinted that he considers Romney to be McCain's best running mate.
Is there a downside to Romney? Possibly. It's not his Mormonism. He lost the nomination to McCain, but religion wasn't the reason. As a corporate turnaround artist, he rescued companies, sometimes by laying off workers. When he ran for the Senate from Massachusetts in 1994, the incumbent, Teddy Kennedy, raised the layoff issue with punishing effect. No doubt Democrats would use it again, and it might have resonance if a recession hits and unemployment is increasing.
Mike Huckabee's name is bound to come up in the veepstakes, since he's now run nationally and been vetted. According to Rove, he would "double" McCain's trouble with conservatives. Both foreign policy and economic conservatives would scream bloody murder if McCain chose the Huckster.
Presidential nominees once tried to balance their ticket with someone who'd helped win a state they might otherwise lose. This hasn't entirely gone out of fashion. Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota is often mentioned in this regard. Former House member John Kasich and ex-trade representative and budget director Rob Portman, both from Ohio, are too.
McCain has also been advised, at least by the media, to pick a much younger person for vice president. Governor Matt Blunt of Missouri, 37, and a handful of others have had their names trotted out. Some of them have impressive credentials. Blunt, for example, is an Annapolis graduate and a Naval Reservist called to active duty after 9/11.
But I don't believe the option of choosing a running mate for purely political reasons is open to McCain--not during wartime, anyway. His strong suit against Barack Obama, his likeliest Democratic opponent, or even against Hillary Clinton, is experience. In fact, Clinton has set up Obama to be attacked by McCain on this front.
Her TV ad raising doubts about Obama's readiness to be president was critical to her victories last week in the Ohio and Texas primaries. She also said in a campaign appearance: "Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign. I will bring a lifetime of experience [to the White House] and Senator Obama will bring a speech he gave in 2002. I think that is a significant difference." In Obama's 2002 speech, he opposed the invasion of Iraq. One can envision her comment in a McCain TV ad zinging Obama.
McCain would throw away the experience issue if he named a much younger running mate or someone without national stature or a background in world affairs. Obama's response could be devastating: "If experience is so important, why did you pick a running mate who has so little, indeed less than I do?"
Romney thus appears to have the best ratio of virtues to drawbacks. But there's just one problem: McCain doesn't like him. Just how important compatibility is--that is something McCain will have to decide.
Mark Sanford is the logical choice.
http://acuf.org/issues/issue15/040703news.asp
He not only acts politically like Ronald Reagan, he gives the same sense in person that he is the real thing. His best friend and campaign manager is his wife, Jenny. He is devoted to his children. He asks all the right questions and wants to know every option. He questions everything and never accepts something simply because it is the way it has always been done. He is a serious, courageous and committed conservative — in fact, the most conservative chief executive in America.
By this criteria McCain himself doesn't qualify.
Regards
Fred Ping!
John McCain might just reach across the aisle and embrace Hillary after Obama trounces her. He would have the best of a bad situation as he could get elected.
I believe the best conservative candidate during the early election cycle was Duncan Hunter and would give McCain the conservative vote.....that being said my second choice would be Fred.....
How is Sanford on amnesty?
Sarah Palin.
Condi Rice is obviously the best choice.
In order to win, McCain is going to have to marry the War in Iraq. He has to prove that case, or he is going to lose to the anti-War candidate. He might as well start by putting Condi on the ticket. She has the stature. She has the credibility.
If he puts Lieberman on the ticket, there are not enough noseplugs in the World to get Republicans to vote for this guy. McCain has been successful to this point by spitting in the eye of the base, but at some point that strategy becomes self defeating. VEEP Lieberman is well short of that point.
my long running problem with Fred was that he never had that much experience. You’d want to pair a senator with a governor.
Governor Sanford served in the House and has some foreign policy experience. He also created his own investment firm.
I think he has something to offer to Huckabee, Romney and even Ron Paul supporters (though not the kooky ones).
I don't think McCain has any choice but to go with a younger, vibrant candidate for Veep. Crist or Romney fit the bill. That said, McCain desperately needs to throw a bone to the conservatives and he could go the route of Tancredo for Veep with the specific task of border control and immigration policy reform.
But if the economy is going to be the defining issue in the general election, he could choose Romney and have him tackle the economy.
He has a lot of good choices, but whatever it is he chooses, it better freaking “WOW” this conservative.
First of all McCain isn't a "plausible president" himself, so that suggestion is a stretch for even Fred Barnes.
Secondly, McCain needs someone who won't make him look worse than he already does, and yet bring in a few million votes.
How about that blind, black, socialist New York lieutenant governor David Paterson?
I pretty much agree with Fred Barnes on everything here.
McCain needs a heavy-weight pick, not a Dan Quayle type.
Fred Thompson would turn the McCain ticket into an endlessly running “Grumpy Old Men” joke. I like Fred, I was all for Fred as you know, though I was also not afraid to criticize his campaign where I saw it failing. I think he lost because of the very things I was critical about. I was called all kinds of names here for speaking the truth.
But lets face it, if Fred didn’t want to be president, then he sure as hell doesn’t want to be VP. The Red Pickup has sailed off into the sunset.
I was wrong to support Thompson. Perhaps not at first, but we were all beating a dead horse for months. That old dog wouldn’t hunt. He was much happier sitting on the porch. We all should have gotten behind Mitt sooner. I actually started out supporting Mitt long before Fred even gave entering the race any thought. I let all the anti-Mormon talk scare me. I bought into the garbage that a Mormon couldn’t get elected president. Maybe that’s true for Mitt Romney right now, but I don’t think so. But with 4 to 8 years experience as VP, his religion won’t matter when he runs to succeed McCain.
Romney has the knowledge and drive to win. Everytime I see him speak I am impressed with him. I know his abilities would bring a lot to the GOP ticket. More than anyone else I can think of. He has the personality, fund-raising abilities and economic knowledge that McCain is going to need to win in November. Romney did a good job in the end of rallying conservatives. A much better job than Thompson, as it turned out. McCain will need all of the conservatives he can get, too.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjRiNGQ4MGYxYjE1Y2QxOGRiMzdkNWY1OTc4MjJjMjE=
“I’m the right-wing nut — you’ve got to remember that,” Sanford told me when I asked about immigration. “So it’s not surprising that I’d be in the camp that says, ‘Secure the borders first. It’s a federal requirement.’”
The base’s immigration revolt against McCain, George W. Bush, and other party leaders didn’t bother Sanford; in fact, he appears to have taken some pleasure in it. “I think it’s good to listen to the electorate in the world of politics,” Sanford told me. “When enough people are out there raising Cain, making noise, saying I’m upset — I mean, Lindsey Graham is a very popular political figure back home, but he was booed at the convention on the immigration issue. Well, you do that in enough places around the country, and lo and behold, [politicians] stand up and say, You know what? I got the message. I was wrong on this one. I mean, that’s pretty cool, and it says the system is working.”
As for his own views, Sanford told me that after securing the borders, he’d support “a bill that said to every employer out there, if you hire an illegal you’re in serious trouble” — something he’s trying to do in South Carolina. Beyond that, he explained that he understands the practical problem of trying “to pull off the largest migration in the history of mankind and send 12 million people back outside the United States.” But he added: “Would I have a problem with it, were it to occur? No.”
I knew the "obvious winner" would be dumb the minute I saw it was a Fred Barnes column. He's been pimping hard for Romney for a year and can't let it go.
Remember that he and Kondracke were saying in mid-December that only Romney and Giuliani had viable paths to the nomination. So much for Barnes' talent for prognostication.
Romney would be a disastrous VP pick. Where Barnes gets this "Romney is a great social conservative" stuff from, I have no idea. And I'd hate to hear his idea of a social moderate.
Right. Condi is over rated, over her head and hates Israel. She is a lousy choice.
I think it would be extremely unwise for McCain to pick Crist. That would leave a very bad taste in the mouths of all of Romney’s supporters, myself included.
I am fully willing to accept McCain as the nominee with open arms, but putting Crist on the ticket would be adding insult to injury.
Romney is the obvious choice.
The only question is if McCain wants to win bad enough to make it.
Not much chance that he might reach across the asile the other direction and pick a real conservative.
Who is this Duncan Donuts, and why do you think he would deliver any votes to McCain?
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