Posted on 07/12/2012 7:09:42 AM PDT by pistolpackinpapa
Mitt Romney showed guts today when he spoke to the NAACP and, as Roger Simon noted at Politico, neither groveled nor pandered to a hostile African-American audience. He may show even more nerve soon naming his running mate well in advance of the Republican National Convention. That’s the way Reuters is interpreting a comment made yesterday at an appearance in Colorado when the GOP candidate was asked whether he would name the person who will fill out his ticket before such announcements are normally made. Rather than shoot down the suggestion or not answer, Romney simply said he hadn’t decided.
The article says Romney and his advisers are considering moving up the pick in order to help raise even more money for their campaign war chest. The suggestion is also made that naming his vice presidential candidate will help distract the public from the scathing attacks the president and his surrogates are making on Romney’s wealth and business career. But if he does pick early — which is still merely speculation — the thinking here is that it will not be in order to gain some temporary advantage that would soon be dissipated. Rather, it would be because Romney had completed the systematic evaluation of his potential running mates and thought there was no point in prolonging the process. If the talk about moving up the announcement is real it is because Romney has made up his mind.
Those who believe Romney is going to make a decision based on the ephemeral political advantages to be gained are forgetting that the Republican is the ultimate numbers-cruncher and specialized in mining the data exhaustively to make the right choice in business. He is probably conducting the veep search in the same manner he has made every other important business and political decision in his life, which makes the notion of moving up the pick merely in order to give him a couple of positive news cycles laughable. This is a man who is obsessed with long rather than short-term gains.
That is why it is likely that whoever he chooses will be someone he thinks can help him govern rather than someone who is, no matter how impressive, unlikely to be the difference in the fall election.
That is also why speculation on the identity of the choice is almost certainly worthless. Pundits who ponder the edges that people like Rob Portman, Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty, Chris Christie and Paul Ryan would provide the GOP ticket are probably not on Romney’s radar screen, as he is almost certainly viewing the question from a completely different frame of reference. Though most of the recent talk about the choice has centered on Portman, the only person who knows whether that is correct is Romney.
But whatever the outcome of the methodical process that Romney is pursuing on this question, it may be that once he has come up with his answer, the former business executive will probably not see much point in engaging in more public theater on the question. If so, then it is easy to imagine him just making his pick in a way that would allow him to get on to the substantive campaign work ahead with his ticket intact.
Whether that will help or hurt him, or as is most likely, have no effect at all on the outcome in November, is uncertain. But the guess here is that if he is thinking at all about naming his running mate in the upcoming weeks rather than waiting for the prelude to the convention, it will be because he has already made up his mind. As Romney showed today when he did not give an inch while speaking to the most hostile group possible to his candidacy, the Republican is going to stick to the plan he has set in his own head and won’t be asking the media for any help in narrowing down the field.
Col. West!
Ref. Post #1: I know how to spell “Romney”. The double “n” was a typo.
He’s a pansie.
“I’ll be better for blacks than president Obama”
“I’ll be better for gays than Sen. Kennedy.”
The best choice is West, somehow I’m afraid it will be Condi Rice (heaven forbid).
Please not Condi
Please not Condi
Please not Condi
“I’ll be better for blacks than president Obama”
“I’ll be better for gays than Sen. Kennedy.”
That’s not being a “pansie” - when your message is economic growth and mobility - its being TRUTHFUL and DEAD ON.
She’s not my first choice, but if it helps defeat Obama and rid us of the radical socialists and commies, then so be it.
The pro Obama crowd in here have such a hatred for Romney that they can’t even see the idiocy in some of their posts.
Geesh!!! I’d hate to be your spouse, or kids, or family members who have to be around you. You ALWAYS see the glass half empty rather than half full. You are the eternal pessimist. Can you NEVER see anything good in anybody or do you always have to find something to bitch about?
Yeah, but at least if you’re a pessimist, you’re never disappointed.
A VP will not be announced before the convention. The GOP wants a large TV audience for the convention and if a VP has already been chosen, the “suspense” factor will not be there and the audience will be smaller. Won’t happen until the convention.
and certainly not before the Olympics. I am guessing that are building the suspense, and may drop it about a week after the Olympics end. That gives them about a full month of hype with this ‘early pick’ tease.
“Has Romney Made His Choice?”
If I may be impertinent, isn’t it a little early to be choosing one’s vice president?
Seems to me it would be better to “assemble a field” of fully-vetted individuals, and bring each of them forward in the next few weeks to evaluate how each does within the context of the campaign. And then to make the final choice at convention time.
Romney will make “the safe pick”. I hope he’s smart enough to make a “pandering pick” — a woman, black, Hispanic under the pretense that this will draw votes to the GOP that otherwise would vote for the democrats. That isn’t going to happen.
As cynical as it may sound, I think Portman of Ohio might be the best choice. Romney can’t win without Ohio, but at this time (if the polls I’ve seen are accurate) Romney is trailing there. He -HAS TO- win Ohio, and anything he can do there to increase his chances is a risk worth taking. My opinion only.
Oops, correction:
“I hope he’s smart enough to make a “pandering pick””
Should have been:
I hope he’s smart enough NOT to make a “pandering pick”.
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Keep your chin up. If anyone is capable of pandering, it's Romney.
PLEASE not the weak, open-borders RINO Rubio!
I think it will be Marco Rubio. As I look at the Polls, Romney is doing better than McCain and Bush in every demographic except Black and Hispanics (maybe young women, hard to tell). He isn’t going to get the black vote, so choosing an Hispanic could swing votes and help in states such as Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Florida.
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