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.
bump
Isn’t he a democrat?
Actually McCain will be the Apologetic President...not a plausible one.
Hey , first time we agreed on anything. High Five !
Enjoy it. It won't last.
Regards
Yup, I mean he’s the best Governor in the country. He loves grabbing third rails and taking on sacred cows. SC had a giant with Carroll Campbell, who was taken too soon, and might’ve ended up as President (instead of Dubya) had he not developed early onset Alzheimer’s, but Sanford has more than measured up to Campbell’s legacy and then some.
Many Floridians here claim that they are not “rumors” but well-known facts.
McCain has made cutting spending one of his core issues.
That is not a problem with him.
Neither is Iraq, obviously.
I think those are the two most important issues when choosing a president, and the reasons why McCain won the nomination.
Romney’s ability to speak lucidly about all the issues may have been his undoing.
McCain only had two - Iraq and Washington pork (that’s one more issue than Giuliani had.) And just like Rudy, he mentioned his issue(s) every chance he got. Just like Obama mentions “hope” and “change”. Repeating the same simplistic message over and over works in politics. It gives that candidate ownership of that message, and suddenly only that candidate stands for that issue in the minds of voters.
How could any Democrat not vote for Obama’s message of “change”? If you don’t vote for Obama then you are voting for President Bush to stay in office for life!
Sounds pretty dumb, yes, but that’s the voting public for you.
McPain/Bolton ‘08.
I hear this over and over.
With due respect, do you not consider McCains amnesty a gigantic earmark? It will smash social security all the sooner.
Regards
We stopped McCain’s amnesty scheme.
We may have to do that from time to time when McCain is president.
Unlike Bush, we will keep McCain on a short leash from Day One.
Still, having to stop McCain 20% of the time is a lot easier than having to try to stop Hillary or Hussein Obama 100% of the time.
I don’t even know why I’m spending precious time that I can’t get back reading threads like this. You’ve hit it, he IS an old t#*rd, he doesn’t like people, people don’t like him, he’s not going to be elected, it doesn’t matter who he offers the VP slot to, and whoever takes it will just be buying a first class ticket on the Titanic.
Fred Barnes has been off the mark for months now and still thinks he has all the answers. He needs to get out more (away from inside the beltway).
Romney as VP would guarantee that I never vote republican again.
The only thing that makes Ridge look conservative is Count Chertoff.
Gov Goodhair here in Texas is supposed to have similar problems. Wish he’d get outted.
Chertoff... sheesh. That guy looks like the undead. Would somebody please feed him a cheeseburger ?
That's exactly how I feel about Slow Joe Lieberman.
Paterson is listed as a democrat, (ie:socialist) but what's wrong with that?
He would fit right in with the faux McCain quite well, and if one could stomach voting for McCain, one would certainly not be deterred by Patterson.
Think of the number of "firsts" in play, should they win.
First ... black VP
First ... legally blind VP
First ... democrat on a winning RHINO ticket
First Lt Governor ... and the list goes on.
Hey ... if we are out to destroy the office of president (and the country) ... let's do it good!
well Gov Sanford doesn’t have mccain’s record
here’s more
http://adailychaser.com/?p=741
May 29, 2007 - Governor Mark Sanford today joined with legislators to call for passage of S.392, a bill aimed at addressing illegal immigration on the state level.
The bill, sponsored by Senators Jim Ritchie, Chip Campsen, Ronnie Cromer and others, would require that all South Carolina employers be able to verify the citizenship of their workers. The bill would also deny business expense deductions to employers of illegal workers, and would mandate withholdings on wages paid to illegal workers.
In addition, the bill would create a state felony for harboring or transporting illegal aliens, would create additional penalties for ID fraud in connection with immigration, would set up a state hotline for reporting suspected violation of immigration laws, and would direct SLED to execute a memorandum of understanding with the federal government to serve as an auxiliary immigration and customs enforcement agency.
Me too.
That sounds encouraging.
Regards
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